Low-Income Households in Appalachia Face the Brunt of Recovery Challenges

By Brendan Muckian-Bates

This blog is part of a series detailing the flood resilience policy roadmap for Appalachia, released by ReImagine Appalachia, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center and the National Wildlife Federation

Hurricane Helene highlighted the devastation that flooding can have on rural communities, and underscores the new normal of flood risk in Appalachia. Even worse, communities hardest hit by these flooding disasters have disproportionately higher rates of poverty than the national average. 

 In Appalachia, the annual median household income is $48,964, more than $20,000 less than the national median of $70,622. The average poverty rate is 16.3 percent, compared to a national average of 14.6 percent. When comparing Stafford Act declarations across Appalachia between 2016-2024, fifty-five percent of counties impacted by declared flood disasters were classified as distressed or at-risk, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission’s definition of county economic strength at the time of the declaration. The following table includes ARC-defined counties that required FEMA Individual Assistance (IA) during this period.

Declared Disaster	State	Year	% of Distressed Counties Impacted	% of At-Risk Counties Impacted	Total
DR-4273-WV	WV	2016	33%	42%	75%
FEMA-4605-DR	WV	2021	25%	25%	50%
FEMA-4756-DR	WV	2024	60%	0%	60%
FEMA-4783-DR	WV	2024	45%	9%	54%
FEMA-4787-DR	WV	2024	37.5%	0%	37.5%
FEMA-4815-DR	PA	2024	0%	0%	0%
FEMA-4595-DR	KY	2021	76%	16%	92%
FEMA-4663-DR	KY	2022	100%	0%	100%
FEMA-4829-DR	SC	2024	14%	14%	28%
Total Average					55%

Rural Appalachian individuals are also more likely to have poor credit scores, face increased cost of credit, have higher rates of denial for mortgage applications, and have higher debt burden than the national average. The U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey reported in 2023 that over one-third of Americans impacted by disasters had to rely on loans or increase credit card spending to meet household needs which, for Appalachians, may be particularly challenging. 

Low- and fixed-income households face significant economic challenges even prior to a major flooding event. Lower-income households typically receive lower IA awards from FEMA, making recovery particularly difficult for those with the fewest resources. Households that are unable to recover financially following a natural disaster may lead to greater displacement, further exacerbating issues of population decline in Appalachian communities.

These unique challenges inform the flood resilience policy roadmap for Appalachia, released earlier this year by NWF, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center (ACLC), and ReImagine Appalachia. The platform highlights federal policy recommendations to improve the ability of Appalachian communities to respond to and recover from floods – including ways to help low-income households. They include:

• Permanently authorize the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Response (CDBG-DR) program, which provides grants for states, counties, local governments, Tribes, and territories to rebuild disaster-impacted areas and assist with long-term recovery. This program supports the unmet home repair needs that low-income households face following disaster recovery efforts. Permanent reauthorization would mean these funds could get to needy communities quicker – it currently takes, on average, nearly a year to allocate CDBG-DR funds post-disaster and often even longer for those funds to be distributed in impacted jurisdictions.
• Ensure more low and fixed-income residents can purchase flood insurance from FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), via creation of a means-tested affordability framework. Flood insurance is a crucial piece of flood resilience, but its cost can be out-of-reach for lower income households. NFIP flood insurance premiums must also be paid in one lump sum annually, further exacerbating the challenge of budgeting for this cost. As Hurricane Helene’s impact has shown, many households outside of the mapped floodplain did not have flood insurance (in Buncombe County, for example, less than 1 percent of structures had flood insurance at the time of Helene’s landfall). It is crucial that flood premium rates are both accurate – accounting for a property’s current, true flood risk – and affordable. 
• Require homeowners to disclose whether a property has ever had a flooding problem, whether the property is located in a special flood hazard area, and whether or not the property is mandated to be covered by flood insurance after previously receiving federal aid. Some states have these property disclosure laws, but not all. This would ensure that low-income households do not purchase a property that is then ineligible for federal aid in future disasters, as it is a FEMA requirement to maintain flood insurance after receiving federal assistance in order to be eligible for future federal aid after a disaster.
  

Given the increased flood risks in Appalachia and the twin burdens of financial stress and cost-burdened households, greater action is needed to protect households who will continue to suffer from climate-related disasters in the coming decades. Learn more about the flood resilience policy roadmap for Appalachia here. 

Join a webinar with NWF, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, and ReImagine Appalachia to learn more about our coalition’s flood resilience priorities for Appalachia on December 12 from 12-1 p.m. ET. Register here.