Household and Housing Recovery After the 2013 Colorado Floods
National Science Foundation RAPID grant, “Understanding Household Recovery Following the 2013 Colorado Flash Floods,” 2014 (Co-PI) · Natural Hazards Center Quick Response grant, 2013 (Co-PI)
Andrew Rumbach, Carrie Makarewicz, Jeremy Németh, and Deborah Thomas, University of Colorado Denver
Abstract
In September 2013, flash floods along Colorado’s Front Range destroyed or damaged thousands of homes and cut off whole communities, including the town of Lyons. Within weeks, Andrew Rumbach, Deborah Thomas, Jeremy Németh, and I began studying how households were recovering, first with a Natural Hazards Center Quick Response grant and then with a National Science Foundation RAPID grant.
We interviewed local, state, and federal officials, observed recovery meetings, and surveyed households in Lyons and Milliken. Early findings showed that the timelines of recovery grant programs often did not match households’ needs, leaving many families in limbo, and that the loss of affordable housing, rising rents, and higher household expenses were common.
Our journal article, based on a survey of 96 households, shows that “place” shapes recovery in four ways: physical exposure to the hazard, the jurisdiction that makes recovery decisions, the local planning culture and its approach to public participation, and the strength of community social networks. A book chapter by Andrew Rumbach and me examines affordable housing in the recovery. We also co-taught a 2014 interdisciplinary summer studio in which graduate students worked with the Town of Lyons on a housing recovery plan, presented to the Board of Trustees that August. The project also seeded our later national research on mobile home parks and disasters.
Publications
- Rumbach, A., C. Makarewicz, and J. Németh. 2016. The importance of place in early disaster recovery: A case study of the 2013 Colorado floods. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 59(11): 2045–2063.
- Rumbach, A., and C. Makarewicz. 2016. Affordable housing and disaster recovery: A case study of the 2013 Colorado floods. In A. Sapat and A.-M. Esnard (Eds.), Coming Home after Disaster: Multiple Dimensions of Housing Recovery. Routledge.
- Rumbach, A., C. Makarewicz, J. Németh, and D. Thomas. 2014. Understanding household recovery following the Colorado flash floods (2013). Quick Response Report No. 250. Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder.
Studio
Housing Development: A Post-Disaster Workshop in Lyons, Colorado (Summer 2014), an interdisciplinary graduate studio co-taught with Andrew Rumbach, College of Architecture and Planning, CU Denver.
