  This research explores the potential to analyze bank card payments and ATM
cash withdrawals in order to map and quantify how people are impacted by and
recover from natural disasters. Our approach defines a disaster-affected
community's economic recovery time as the time needed to return to baseline
activity levels in terms of number of bank card payments and ATM cash
withdrawals. For Hurricane Odile, which hit the state of Baja California Sur
(BCS) in Mexico between 15 and 17 September 2014, we measured and mapped
communities' economic recovery time, which ranged from 2 to 40 days in
different locations. We found that -- among individuals with a bank account --
the lower the income level, the shorter the time needed for economic activity
to return to normal levels. Gender differences in recovery times were also
detected and quantified. In addition, our approach evaluated how communities
prepared for the disaster by quantifying expenditure growth in food or gasoline
before the hurricane struck. We believe this approach opens a new frontier in
measuring the economic impact of disasters with high temporal and spatial
resolution, and in understanding how populations bounce back and adapt.
