Tornadoes, poverty and race in the USA: A five-decade analysis

Purpose - The study aims to analyze the roles of poverty and African American status in terms of vulnerability to tornado damages and barriers to recovery afterward. Design/methodology/approach - Using five decades of county-level data on tornadoes, the authors test whether economic damages from tornadoes are correlated with vulnerability (proxied by poverty and African American status) and wealth (proxied by median income and educational attainment), controlling for tornado risk. A multinomial logistic difference-in-difference (DID) estimator is used to analyze long-run effects of tornadoes in terms of displacement (reduced proportions of the poor and African Americans), abandonment (increased proportions of those groups) and neither or both. Findings - Controlling for tornado risk, poverty and African American status are linked to greater tornado damages, as is wealth. Absent tornadoes, displacement and abandonment are both more likely to occur in urban settings and communities with high levels of vulnerability, while abandonment is more likely to occur in wealthy communities, consistent with on-going forces of segregation. Tornado damages significantly increase abandonment in vulnerable communities, thereby increasing the prevalence of poor African Americans in those communities. Therefore, the authors conclude that tornadoes contribute to on-going processes generating inequality by poverty/race. Originality/value - The current paper is the first study connecting tornado damages to race and poverty. It is also the first study finding that tornadoes contribute to long-term processes of segregation and inequality.