Community Interventions for Infection Control Unit, Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA.
Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2020 Feb;14(1):125-129. doi: 10.1017/dmp.2019.159.
Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall in Texas on August 24, 2017, caused catastrophic damage that resulted in the closure of many schools and school districts across 4 states. We evaluated the underlying reasons and characteristics of the unplanned school closures to gain insight on how communities may cope with recommended preemptive closures as an intervention for pandemic influenza.
Information was extracted from news articles, school websites, and Twitter and Facebook posts previously collected through daily systematic searches of Google, Google News, and Lexis-Nexis. This information was sorted into predefined categories describing the characteristics that may be associated with unplanned school closures that occur during a natural disaster.
Across Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee, there were 3026 unplanned closures. Sixty-three percent of the closures occurred in Texas. The main reasons for the closures were flooding, power outages, and structural damage. The closed schools in Texas were sometimes used as shelters or as locations for providing food or other resources.
School closures associated with Hurricane Harvey were attributed to both the effects of the hurricane and use for resource allocation. These findings can help inform preparedness planning and response for future hurricane seasons and other large-scale emergencies.
2017 年 8 月 24 日，飓风“哈维”在美国得克萨斯州登陆，造成了灾难性的破坏，导致 4 个州的许多学校和学区关闭。我们评估了这些非计划性学校关闭的根本原因和特点，以期深入了解社区如何应对作为大流行性流感干预措施的预防性关闭。
从新闻文章、学校网站以及之前通过对 Google、Google 新闻和 LexisNexis 的日常系统搜索收集的 Twitter 和 Facebook 帖子中提取信息。这些信息被归入描述可能与自然灾害期间发生的非计划性学校关闭相关的特征的预定义类别。
在德克萨斯州、路易斯安那州、肯塔基州和田纳西州，共有 3026 所学校被非计划性关闭。其中 63%的关闭发生在德克萨斯州。关闭的主要原因是洪水、停电和结构损坏。德克萨斯州的关闭学校有时被用作避难所或提供食物或其他资源的地点。
与飓风“哈维”相关的学校关闭既归因于飓风的影响，也归因于资源分配的需要。这些发现可以帮助为未来的飓风季节和其他大规模紧急情况做好准备规划和应对。
