Vulnerable Populations During a Disaster

Not everyone has access to the same kinds of resources to be able to plan for, respond to, and recover from a disaster. While it can be tempting to see vulnerability and resilience as opposite sides of the same coin, this is not always the case. A community with a large vulnerable population can still have high levels of resilience.

Note: After this issue of Kentucky: By The Numbers was created, several changes occurred to the FEMA National Risk Index and online resources including discontinuing the mapping website for the National Risk Index, the data for the National Risk Index and its components were incorporated into the RAPT (Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool) website, and the measures and data source used for the social vulnerability component were changed.

Here are the maps of Kentucky after these changes.

Maps for Kentucky of the Resilience and Vulnerability components of the National Risk Index

While the previous mapping site allowed for zooming in below the county level, to find data below the county level on the RAPT website, click on the “NRI” icon at the top and select “National Risk Index Census Tracts.” To see some quick tips on finding the National Risk Index (NRI) on the RAPT website, see "Finding and Mapping Local Data for the National Risk Index."

For counties with small populations and small population groups, the margins of error (indicated by a +/-___) for data from the American Community Survey can be quite large. The margin of error tells us how precise the estimate is by indicating the range within which the estimate most likely falls. For help in understanding the margin of error, see the brief Kentucky: By The Numbers publication “And Now for the Grain of Salt.”