Toward a New Environmental (De)Segregation? Student Mobility Following Hurricane Flooding in North Carolina, 2014-2022

• In Event: Racial Integration, Belonging and Gaps Across States, Districts and Schools

Abstract

Children’s educational journeys are increasingly interrupted by climate disasters such as hurricane flooding. While residential segregation sometimes concentrates flood risks among economically and racially marginalized groups, there is limited understanding of whether flooding events themselves are (de)segregating: whether uneven effects on mobility patterns alter or exacerbate existing patterns of spatial separation between groups. In this study, I draw on statewide longitudinal student records from North Carolina and high-resolution flood inundation information to understand the impacts of flooding from recent hurricanes on residential and school mobility patterns. Results show that impacts of storms on school mobility patterns are limited to the hardest-hit schools, but among these severely impacted schools, mobility increased dramatically in the years following major hurricanes.

Author

• Tyler McDaniel, Stanford University