Data on hurricane-induced unplanned school closures in the East and Gulf Coast of the US

This paper presents data on Prolonged Unplanned School Closures (PUSCs) caused by hurricanes and affecting school districts along the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States between the 2011/12 and 2018/19 academic years. PUSCs are school closures lasting at least seven days that were not part of the school calendar at the start of the academic year. The dataset additionally includes counterfactual observations, meaning information pertaining to school districts affected by hurricanes, but that either did not close, or that did not experience a prolonged closure. We additionally incorporate school-district level data on socioeconomic characteristics, geography, school district capacity, and hazard characteristics. These data are used in the paper titled "Learning after the storm: Characterizing and Understanding Prolonged Unplanned School Closures After Hurricane"[1]. This dataset can be leveraged to uncover patterns of PUSCs, evaluate the impacts of various factors on school closure duration, and identify appropriate policies and strategies to enhance community resilience by minimizing the potential and the impacts of school closures. Looking ahead, the expected change of hurricane frequency and intensity under climate change makes such systematic data compilation an especially critical resource for both public and academic use.