Food security in the form of access to nutritional and affordable food is a chronic problem for a percentage of American households in normal times and this percentage can dramatically increase after a natural disaster as local retailers and food banks struggle to meet the needs of their customers and clients. Such was the case after Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the evening of August 25, 2017 along the middle of the Texas coast. During the next five days it dropped unprecedented amounts of rainfall throughout northeastern sections of the Texas coast generating extensive flooding, massive power and water system failures, displacing hundreds of thousands of households, and disrupting local food retailers and food banks. Unfortunately, very little systematic research exists on the consequences of disaster events for food retailers and food banks. This research will address this deficiency by investigating the consequences of Hurricane Harvey's impacts on local food retailers and food aid agencies. The data captured will inform interdisciplinary models of community resilience. Furthermore, results from this project will encourage and inform local, state, and national policies that address chronic and acute food-security issues; thereby reducing vulnerabilities and enhancing the resiliency of our nation's food distribution network. Findings from this research will also be incorporated directly into graduate and undergraduate courses on community resilience, planning methods and measures, and disaster recovery and mitigation.
This project will gather data on the consequences of direct damage to an establishment's physical structure and inventory, temporary and permanent loss of staff and employees, and the disruption of critical infrastructure systems (transportation, energy, water, and communications) from businesses and organizations comprising local food distribution networks. The project will assess the relative influence of these impacts for business/agency continuity and survival and for changes in local food distribution networks. To accomplish these goals, this project will conduct in-depth structured and semi-structured interviews with food retailers and food aid agencies in three counties -- Galveston, Harris, and Jefferson -- heavily impacted by Hurricane Harvey's flooding. Together the study area has more than 3,500 food retailers and three food banks that serve over 270 food pantries. A representative random sample of both large and small food retailers and non-profit food pantries operating in both impacted and non-impacted areas and serving populations of varying levels of food security will be surveyed. Quantitative models assessing: 1) the relative consequences of direct damage and infrastructure disruption for business failure and disruption and 2) changes to local food distribution infrastructure networks and the potential consequences for community food security will be developed utilizing these data.
