Tornadoes exacerbate racial segregation in US: study

As the tornado season in the United States ramps up, a study found that those storms contribute to generating racial inequality in the country, the Journalist's Resource reported.

After analyzing data from the 1970s through the 2010s, researchers reckoned that in U.S. counties where tornadoes had hit, the overall proportion of black people and the proportion of people living in poverty are both slightly higher.

Those with financial resources to move are likelier to be white, increasing "the prevalence of poor African Americans in those communities," according to the study, while lower-income black populations are more likely to be renters and lack the financial resources to rebuild in storm-torn places, making them more likely than white people to be displaced from their homes.

What's made things worse is the racial discrimination in disaster aid distribution, the Journalist's Resource added, citing a 2021 investigation from the Washington Post which exposed a system that denied aid to black families, reports UNB.