Hurricane Helene — September–October 2024
FEMA OpenFEMA · ALICE © United for ALICE · Red Cross ops pending
This tool identifies U.S. counties affected by Hurricane Helene (September–October 2024) where two conditions overlap: FEMA Individual & Households Program (IHP) approval rates were low and a large share of households were already financially fragile according to United for ALICE's Threshold methodology. It poses a question — did Red Cross operations close the gap? — rather than asserting an answer.
This is a working prototype — approximately 85% of the intended analysis is in place. Three things are explicit gaps, not oversights:
None of these gaps block the question this map poses today. All three block “publishable” status. Share accordingly.
| FEMA IHP | OpenFEMA Individual & Households Program Valid Registrations endpoint. 2.07 million records across six Helene disaster declarations (DR-4827 through DR-4834). Refreshed April 2026. The ihpEligible boolean is FEMA's own determination — no estimation by this project. |
| ALICE | United for ALICE county-level household classification, 2023 (most recent available). alice_threshold_share = (Poverty Households + ALICE Households) / Total Households. This is ALICE's published methodology applied to their published data. |
| Red Cross | DR 220-25 county-level operations data. Not yet loaded. The map currently shows FEMA + ALICE analysis only. The "data ask" section identifies exactly what Red Cross data is needed to complete the picture. |
| Demographics | American Community Survey 2023 5-Year Estimates (Census Bureau). Updated April 2026. |
A county is flagged when all three conditions are met:
| ≥ 100 applicants | Filters statistical noise. Of 125 counties with 0% IHP approval, 90 had ≤ 10 applicants — too few to draw conclusions from. |
| < 60% IHP approval | Identifies counties where FEMA's program left a significant coverage gap. The national average across Helene was 42%. Most flagged counties are far below 60%. |
| > 40% ALICE share | Identifies financially fragile communities where the gap hits hardest. 40% means two in five households were at or below ALICE Threshold before the hurricane. |
These thresholds define the question, not a statistical finding. They were chosen to isolate a meaningful set of counties (~117) for further investigation. Shifting thresholds by ±10 percentage points changes the count but not the pattern.
Response Gap Analysis: Hurricane Helene. American Red Cross GIS, using United for ALICE methodology and FEMA OpenFEMA data. April 2026. helenegap.jbf.com