The electric power infrastructure in Puerto Rico suffered substantial damage as Hurricane Maria crossed the island on September 20, 2017. Despite significant efforts made by authorities, it took almost a year to achieve near-complete power recovery. In this study, we used spaceborne daily nighttime lights (NTL) imagery as a surrogate measure of power loss and restoration. We quantified the drop of power delivery and its gradual recovery at the 889 county subdivisions for over eight months and computed average days without power from the time-series recovery graph. We formulated a Quasi-Poisson regression model to identify the association of the features from physical and socioeconomic domains with the power recovery effort. According to the model, the recovery time extended for areas closer to the landfall location of the hurricane, with every 50-kilometer increase in distance from the landfall corresponding to 30% fewer days without power (95% CI = 26% -33%). Road connectivity was a major issue for the restoration effort, areas having a direct connection with hi-speed roads recovered more quickly with 7% fewer outage days (95% CI = 1% -13%). The areas which were affected by moderate landslide needed 5.5% (95% CI = 1% -10%), and high landslide areas needed 11.4% more days to recover (95% CI = 2% -21%). Financially disadvantaged areas suffered more from the extended outage. For every 10% increase in population below the poverty line, there was a 2% increase in recovery time (95% CI = 0.3% -2.8%).
Abstract. Residential satisfaction, an indicator of the quality of life, can be conceptualized with the objective and subjective evaluation of the physical and ecological characteristics of dwellings and neighbourhoods. The majority of the New Yorkers remained indoors during the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing the importance of the residential environment and satisfaction like never before. Noise and safety are two major determinants of residential satisfaction that changed much during the pandemic lockdown. We used citizen-generated non-emergency (NYC311) and emergency (NYPD911) complaint data to investigate the spatial and temporal change dynamics of complaints related to noise and safety. In the noise domain, we focused on NYC311 complaints associated with the noise from neighbours, streets, and illegal fireworks. In the safety domain, we examined the change of both physical and economic safety. For physical safety, we used the NYPD 911 data related to burglary and vehicle larceny, where for economic safety, we used NYC311 complaints correspond to price gouging. We spatially aggregated the complaints at the census tract level (total = 2123) and performed Welsch’s t-test to identify the change dynamics of the satisfaction during the pandemic for different socioeconomic factors. We found the overall residential satisfaction decreased during the pandemic with extreme noise exposure and inadequate safety. The study also found the economic and racial disparity in residential satisfaction during the pandemic, as with statistical significance, the complaints regarding noise, physical and financial safety generated from the Black, Latinx, and impoverished communities were significantly higher than White, Asian and affluent communities.
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