  Significant negative impacts are observed in productivity, economy, and
social wellbeing because of the reduced human activity due to extreme events.
Community resilience is an important and widely used concept to understand the
impacts of an extreme event to population activity. Resilience is generally
defined as the ability of a system to manage shocks and return to a steady
state in response to an extreme event. In this study, aggregate location data
from Facebook in response to Hurricane Ida are analyzed. Using changes in the
number of Facebook users before, during, and after the disaster, community
resilience is quantified as a function of the magnitude of impact and the time
to recover from the extreme situation. Based on the resilience function, the
transient loss of resilience in population activity is measured for the
affected communities in Louisiana. The loss in resilience of the affected
communities are explained by three types of factors, including disruption in
physical infrastructures, disaster conditions due to hurricanes, and
socio-economic characteristics. A greater loss in community resilience is
associated with factors such as disruptions in power and transportation
services and disaster conditions. Socioeconomic disparities in loss of
resilience are found with respect to median income of a community.
Understanding community resilience using decreased population activity levels
due to a disaster and the factors associated with losses in resilience will
enable us improve hazard preparedness, enhance disaster management practices,
and create better recovery policies towards strengthening infrastructure and
community resilience.
