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14 J. Animal & Env't L. 83 (2022-2023)
When Disaster Strikes: An Analysis of the Widening Socioeconomic Disparities Caused by Federal Relief Efforts

handle is hein.journals/jael14 and id is 177 raw text is: WHEN DISASTER STRIKES: AN ANALYSIS OF THE WIDENING SOCIOECONOMIC DISPARITIES CAUSED BY FEDERAL RELIEF EFFORTS Gabriella Wirasakti I. INTRODUCTION Climate change is constantly escalating the severity, duration, and intensity of natural disasters.1 It is becoming increasingly costly to mitigate the damage caused by these disasters each year. Natural catastrophe losses in the United States rose to an unprecedented $133 billion in 2020, due to Hurricanes Harvey, Maria, and Irma and the wildfires on the West Coast, a statistic that does not include the high death and monetary losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.2 Further, fewer than 20 percent of U.S. counties experienced a disaster each year in the early and mid-20th century, but today is about 50 percent.3 As disasters become more common, the economic and racial disparities of federal disaster aid are becoming more apparent. Countless stories are being told of low-income and minority families struggling to rebuild their lives after suffering through a major disaster while their white and affluent counterparts recover quickly and often come out of a disaster better than before. One such disparity is evident in the journeys of two families after Hurricane Harvey flooded the city of Houston. The Papadopoulos and Evans families were two of the many families that had to evacuate their homes. A year after the disaster, the Papadopoulos family, a white and affluent household, was financially stable.4 They received $30,000 in federal aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and $100,000 in refunded taxes from the Internal Revenue Service.5 It was a starkly different story for the Evans family, consisting of a black mother and her three children. FEMA only gave the Evans family $2,500 in aid ' Rebecca Hersher and Robert Benincasa, How Federal Disaster Money Favors The Rich, NPR (Mar. 5, 2019), https://www.npr.org/2019/03/05/688786177/how-federal-disaster-money-favors- the-rich. 2 2021 natural catastrophes, INSURANCE INFORMATION INSTITUTE, https://www.iii.org/fact- statistic/facts-statistics-us- catastrophes#:~:text=Natural%20catastrophe%201osses%20in%20the%20United%20States%20ro se%20to%20an,from%20%2439.6%20billion%20in%202019 (last visited Jan. 20, 2022). A catastrophe is defined as a natural event that causes $25 million or more in insured property losses, or 10 deaths; or 50 people injured; or 2,000 filed claims or homes and structures damaged. 3 Hersher, supra note 1. 4 Id. 5 Id. 83 JAEL, Vol. 14, No. 2 WHEN DISASTER STRIKES