The economic impact of school closures during the 2015 flood in Richland County, South Carolina

Research on the societal costs of disaster‐related US school closures has focused, and due to COVID‐19 will likely continue to focus, on pandemics, with very limited research on closures from natural hazards. This is surprising given that school closures occur frequently to protect children, teachers, and staff pre‐event as well as post‐disaster to convert facilities into emergency shelters, etc. This study investigates the secondary effects from post‐flooding, temporary school closures after the catastrophic 2015 flash flood in Richland County, South Carolina. Lost productivity from school closures was quantified using the Human Capital Method. Out of the 208 completed surveys, 75% of households had children that missed school. Post‐stratifying survey results on race produced an average of $437 in lost productivity due to school closures and an overall $2175 in lost productivity due to flood‐related impacts in general. Expressed in FEMA benefit‐cost analysis terms, our study shows that schools have a standard value of $215 per household and per day for the unweighted sample ($180 for the race‐weighted sample). Furthermore, households' disutility for a late start is almost as great as their disutility for a school closure. These exploratory findings suggest that unplanned school closures should be minimized, and community characteristics carefully considered to avoid unintended socioeconomic consequences. 摘要 与灾害相关的美国学校关闭，其产生的社会成本研究已聚焦于大流行，并在2019冠状病毒病（COVID‐19）情境下很有可能继续聚焦于大流行，但鲜有研究聚焦于与自然灾害相关的学校关闭。这是出乎意料的，因为关闭学校一事频繁发生，用于在灾害前后保护儿童、教师和员工，并将学校设施转变为应急避难所等。本研究调查了2015年南卡罗莱纳州里奇兰县惨烈洪灾事件后临时关闭学校所产生的次级效应（secondary effect）。通过人力资本法对关闭学校所损失的生产力进行量化。在208份已完成的调查中，75%的家庭报告其子女想念上学。以种族为研究对象的事后分层调查结果显示，因关闭学校造成的生产力损失平均为437美元（以家庭为单位），并且因洪灾相关影响而总体造成的生产力损失为2,175美元（以家庭为单位）。以联邦紧急事务管理局的收益‐成本分析术语为参考，我们的研究表明，对未加权样本而言，学校的标准值为每户每天215美金，而对种族加权样本的标准值为每户每天180美元。此外，家庭对晚点开学和对关闭学校所感受的负效用程度几乎相同。这些探索性发现暗示，应将未计划的关闭学校事件最小化，并谨慎考量社区特征，以期避免意料之外的社会经济结果。 Resumen La investigación sobre los costos sociales de los cierres de escuelas en EE. UU. Relacionados con los desastres se ha centrado, y debido al COVID‐19, es probable que continúe centrándose en las pandemias, con una investigación muy limitada sobre los cierres por peligros naturales. Esto es sorprendente dado que los cierres de escuelas ocurren con frecuencia para proteger a los niños, maestros y personal antes del evento y después del desastre para convertir las instalaciones en refugios de emergencia, etc. Este estudio investiga los efectos secun