What is it about?
Natural disasters can severely disrupt daily life, especially in local communities that experience heavy damage. This study examines how well local communities recover after such events by analyzing how people move before, during, and after a major disaster. Specifically, the paper focuses on communities in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and the greater Houston area that were heavily affected by the February 2021 Texas winter storm.
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Why is it important?
Understanding how local communities respond to extreme natural hazards is essential for designing cities that can recover quickly and safely. This study provides a data-driven way to measure community-level resilience using real human mobility patterns before, during, and after a major disaster. By focusing on heavily damaged communities during the February 2021 Texas winter storm, the work demonstrates that resilience can be quantified not only at the city scale but also at the scale where people actually live. As climate-driven hazards become more frequent and urban populations continue to grow, the ability to measure and anticipate community recovery is increasingly important. This work supports the development of more resilient, adaptive, and safer cities by providing actionable metrics that can inform infrastructure planning, emergency response, and long-term resilience policy. This research relates to the following Sustainable Development Goals: • SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities • SDG 13: Climate Action • SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure • SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being • SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Quantification of community resilience to natural hazards by tracking cell-phone GPS location data, Reliability Engineering & System Safety, February 2026, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2025.111738.
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