Hurricane season officially started yesterday. In the lower 48 states, there are 126 counties at risk of storm surge from a Category 5 hurricane, according to NOAA. Based on our analysis, just 36% of eligible people across those counties is fully vaccinated.
The Gulf Coast is home to hundreds of large petrochemical plants, oil wells and refineries, and Superfund sites containing large quantities of toxic material. Every hurricane strike has the potential to expose people in the area to even greater concentrations of toxic chemicals.
Weathering a storm requires resources. A handful of states in hurricane territory, including Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina, have opted to discontinue expanded unemployment benefits earlier than is required by the federal govt.
More than 1 in 5 Black individuals are believed to have experienced food insecurity in 2020. According to @FeedingAmerica, TX faces a 27% increase in the # of children facing very low food security for 2021. These are families w/o the means to stockpile food in advance of a storm
Hurricanes are notorious for causing another serious impact: power outages. In the US, the power grid remains highly vulnerable to severe storms, and in too many communities people have been left vulnerable to the long-lasting outages that can ensue.
All of these issues point toward major threats to public health —to physical and mental health, if this hurricane season presents some extreme storms. act.ucsusa.org/2S2hxMY
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