Prolonged Unplanned School Closures Caused by Hurricanes

Dataset and code for the following paper: Abbasi, D., Safari, S., Nateghi, R., & Reilly, A. C. (2025). Learning after the Storm: Characterizing and Understanding Prolonged Unplanned School Closures after Hurricanes. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 105611.

Schools are vital for providing both education and social services, but when closures extend for long periods due to disasters, they can disrupt student learning and cause widespread negative consequences for families and the broader community. This dataset compiles information on Prolonged Unplanned School Closures (PUSCs)—those lasting seven or more unexpected days—linked to hurricanes from the 2011/12 to 2018/19 school years across East and Gulf Coast school districts. It includes data on districts that closed, as well as counterfactuals where closures were avoided or brief. Supplementary district-level data cover socioeconomic factors, geography, school district capacity, and hazard characteristics, along with code used for analysis. This dataset (CSV and XLSX) and code underpin the study “Learning after the Storm: Characterizing and Understanding Prolonged Unplanned School Closures After Hurricanes.”