Social Resources and Community Resilience in the Wake of Superstorm Sandy

Recovery efforts after natural disasters typically focus on physical infrastructure. In general less attention is paid to the social infrastructure that might impact the capacity of the community to rebuild. We examine perceptions of preparedness and recovery (markers of resilience at the community level) in the wake of Superstorm Sandy with a novel data set that includes a multi-mode survey of twelve neighborhoods severely affected by the storm. With these data, we suggest that social resources are associated with beliefs about neighborhood resilience. People who live in communities with higher social cohesion (coefficient = .73, p < .001), informal social control (coefficient = .53, p < .001), and social exchange (coefficient = .69, p < .001) are more likely to believe their neighborhoods are well prepared for a disaster. Likewise, people living in communities with higher social cohesion (coefficient = .35, p < .01), informal social control (coefficient = .27, p < .05), and social exchange (coefficient = .42, p < .001) are more likely to be confident their neighborhoods will recover quickly from a disaster. However, the effects of social resources on beliefs about resilience vary based on neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) and the impact of the storm. Informal social control and social exchange lead to a greater increase in confidence in recovery in low, as compared to high, SES neighborhoods. Social resources tend to have more impact on perceptions of recovery in communities less affected by the storm. In sum, these findings suggest the potential value of various forms of social intervention to better equip communities to respond when disaster strikes.