Results from a newly-developed survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau have shown that more than 1.3% of the adult population in the U.S. was displaced by natural disasters in the past year, with hurricanes responsible for more than half of the forced relocations.
According to the Household Pulse Survey results, 3.3 million U.S. adults were displaced by hurricanes, floods, fires, tornados or other disasters in the country. The two-year-old online survey asked for the first time about displacement from natural disasters in results released Thursday, albeit with varying impacts in the states.
In Florida, nearly 1 million people, an equivalent of 1 in 17 adult residents, were displaced by Hurricanes Ian and Nicole that ravaged the state in the fall. More than 409,000 people were displaced in Louisiana, albeit it had a comparatively calm hurricane season in 2022 even though residents still were dealing with the devastating impacts from Hurricane Ida the previous year.
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Indiana, Maine, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma are among the states with the lowest rates of the adult population being displaced by disasters.
Results from the survey further showed that of the 3.3 million displaced adults, more than a third were out of their homes for less than a week while about 1 in 6 residents never returned to their homes.
The demographic makeup of the displaced didn’t deviate much from the overall race and ethnic background of the U.S. population, but they tended to be poorer. About 22% of the displaced adults reported having a household income of less than $25,000 a year, compared to 17.4% of the overall U.S. population.
The Census Bureau sent invitations to more than 1 million households to participate in the experimental survey and collected a total of 70,685 responses in mid-December.
Adapted from AP.
