Resilience in complex disasters: Florida's hurricane preparedness, response, and recovery amid COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and active hurricane seasons posed complex challenges for coastal communities, requiring innovative and adaptive emergency management approaches. Using in-depth interviews with Florida emergency management professionals, this study examines emerging challenges and strategies implemented by governmental and nonprofit agencies during the hurricane-pandemic compound disasters of the 2020 and 2021 hurricane seasons. Our findings reveal the interconnectedness of challenges across different disasters and their interplay with existing vulnerabilities. We find that social distancing due to COVID-19 strained human and financial resources for hurricane preparedness, response, and recovery. Moreover, the increased remote work due to COVID-19 increased reliance on information communication technologies (ICTs), which intensified the negative impacts of the existing urban-rural digital divide in Florida. These ICT challenges impeded inter-agency collaboration and external funding for rural communities, further amplifying disparities in hurricane response and recovery. Our study also uncovers multifaceted strategies addressing competing priorities between hurricane evacuation and COVID-19 prevention, resource limitations, information and communication gaps, and collaboration challenges. These insights provide practical guidance to coastal communities to enhance future preparedness and response efforts in hurricane-pandemic compounding disasters.