The recent power blackouts in Memphis and Gary, Ind., which left thousands of families in the dark, expose how decades of racist infrastructure have made Black and Brown communities especially vulnerable to power grid failures and natural disasters.
Disasters and extreme weather events due to climate change— which have struck communities in the Midwest, Hawaiian Islands, and the Caribbean – do not discriminate in what communities they hit. However, disparate resources in Black and Brown communities make it difficult to rebuild in ways that are safe and equitable.
“What is happening in Gary and Memphis is going to keep happening and will show up in other communities. Black people today, poor and rural white communities tomorrow,” Cassia Herron, an Aspen Global Innovators Healthy Communities Fellow and climate justice activist, said in a statement to The Emancipator.
“Entire cities’ energy grids will collapse. Water is not going to be available. Local municipal and civic leaders need to invest in disaster planning. Legislators must invest in preparing our communities for more loss as well as alternatives to corporate-controlled utilities, food and drug companies, and drastically changing our healthcare system.”
White victims of disasters tended to receive more aid than Black or Brown victims, studies show. That’s because according to FEMA policy, individual relief aid is disbursed based on the value of the property and the infrastructure damage incurred in the disaster. But a history of redlining and housing racism and a major disinvestment in communities with primarily Black and Brown residents has suppressed property values, Matt Plaus, a business and policy scholar, highlighted in a 2023 piece.
According to the 2025 U.S. Census, the average home value in Gary, which is 76.2% Black, is roughly $94,700. The rest of Indiana is 81.2% White, with an average home value of $218,200.
In Memphis, which is 62.9% Black, the average home value is $169,000, compared to the rest of Tennessee, which is 76.7% White with an average home value of $286,700.
In Puerto Rico, which is 99% Latino, the average home value is $131,500, compared to Connecticut, a state with a comparable size to Puerto Rico, with an average home value of $366,900.
And in Hawaii– a place where, according to a 2014 study, 47.1% of Native Hawaiians did not own their homes and where 28% of Native Hawaiians experienced homelessness in O’ahu from 2022 to 2023 – the average home value is $839,100. The average home value in Honolulu County, which includes O’ahu, is $897,500.
“Black Americans receive less Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) relief funding on average than their white counterparts,” Plaus wrote. “Their communities take longer to recover in the wake of natural disasters, and they are less likely to relocate to areas with fewer disasters.”
“ [FEMA] does not take into account historical racism’s role in determining market values,” Plaus said. “Without responding to this reality, FEMA perpetuates the cycle of systemic racism. By failing to consider historically racist policies’ effect on the market, FEMA reinforces the effects of those racist systems. As a result, historically disadvantaged communities do not receive adequate funding to rebuild properly.”
A 2022 study conducted by researchers at the University of Central Florida and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University found that a county’s racial and ethnic makeup impacted “inequities in FEMA’s Individuals and Households Program recovery fund delivery.” The program is FEMA’s largest aid program and the primary way the agency provides relief to residents after disasters devastate communities.
The researchers also found that socioeconomic factors drive inequities in FEMA funding; thus, those with more money and wealth receive more funding sooner than others.
When the Power Goes Out, Inequity Keeps It Off
Other studies have found that power outages tend to last longer in Black and Brown communities due to a historic lack of investment and challenges updating their power grids.
Indiana’s power grid is undergoing a costly multi-billion-dollar modernization project; upgrades are updated incrementally. Gary’s most recent update was August 26.
Hawaii’s grid was last assessed by Hawaiian Electric this past March.
Memphis was still in the middle of a multi-year infrastructure overhaul when the city was battered by storms.
Puerto Rico’s power grid, meanwhile, hasn’t been updated in years and experiences routine power outages, including a massive outage in 2017 caused by Hurricane Maria that left parts of the island without power for nearly a year.
A study published in 2025 found that Black, Brown, and Indigenous people experience “energy insecurity” based on “income and wealth gaps [that] are rooted in systemic and structural racism.”
“Emerging evidence suggests that the energy infrastructure that serves more racially diverse areas is older and less capable than the energy infrastructure that serves majority-white areas, like other public and private physical investment,” they wrote.
The same social factors that lead to de facto segregation in housing “have also informed the placement and quality of energy infrastructure, contributing to disparities in access to alternative energy providers, ability to affect decision-making on energy rates,” the researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, Columbia University, and Resources for the Future found.
They also discovered these factors are exacerbated when Black and Brown people are forced to live in so-called “heat islands.” These are communities with lots of concrete and less green space, substandard housing, and factories and facilities that heavily contribute to pollution. All of these factors also lead to higher electricity use.
The researchers looked at energy consumption in California, New York, and Alabama. They analyzed racial differences in energy prices, consumption, and bills through Energy Information Administration data from 2017 to 2021.
“Our results indicate that majority BIPOC service areas are more likely to pay higher energy prices but consume less energy compared to predominantly white service areas,” said researchers Yael Nidam Kirsht, Anjuli Jain Figueroa, Carlos Martín, Tony Reames, and Diana Hernández in their study. “This finding is complementary to prior studies that identified that residents in predominantly non-white communities spend larger shares of their income on their bills despite using less energy and rely on strategies such as energy-limiting behavior and vigilant conservation.”
In Gary, the disparate FEMA funding and poor infrastructure led to a blackout that lasted over two weeks. A severe derecho with winds up to 99 mph, tornadoes, and flooding hit northwestern Indiana and northeastern Illinois on August 11 and caused the long-lasting power outage to over 38,300 homes and businesses in the area.
Gary, a city with predominantly Black residents, was the last in the region to regain power due to poor infrastructure and government neglect. After the derecho, Gary was left out of the restoration timeline made by the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), when all other neighboring towns and cities had plans and timelines for when their power would be restored.
The longstanding delays and exclusion in restoration plans led Gary Mayor Eddie Melton to meet with Indiana Senator Jim Banks and President Trump over the phone to ask for expedited FEMA help and resources in the town’s recovery.
Governor Mike Braun of Indiana also launched an investigation into NIPSCO for their major delays in power restoration. 99% of residents in Gary eventually got their power restored on August 25.
That same day, President Trump announced a major disaster declaration that opened up FEMA and federal funds to the region.
On Thursday, roughly 1,300 of the 1,800 residents in Northwest Indiana who lost power were in Gary. For many of them, the power remained off as of Friday morning.
Similarly, in Memphis, communities are currently experiencing blockouts caused by a derecho that left 100,000 homes without power on August 22. Residents were forced to find water and generators on their own, after being told full restoration of power wouldn’t come back for days, according to Capital B.
Memphis, which is also a city with the majority Black residents, requested federal assistance from FEMA to aid recovery efforts and bring back power to the community.
As of August 28, no federal funding had been granted to the city. However, Memphis had 99% of its power restored on the same day, marking an end to the six-day power blackout.
During the week of August 15, Hurricane Lala hit the state of Hawaii with record-breaking amounts of rain and destructive winds that caused major flooding and landslides to Hawai’i Island, commonly known as the Big Island. Video from the storm shows a roof being ripped off a home on Hawai’i Island, with the homeowners in the back frantically trying to evacuate the home as the roof is fully removed.
Over the two days the storm made landfall, some areas got 20 to 40 inches of rain, with the total rainfall equaling 1.9 million Olympic-size swimming pools, according to Hawaii News Now. The islands most impacted were Hawaiʻi Island, Maui, and Oʻahu, causing power outages to approximately 200,000 homes and businesses. State and local governments requested federal assistance from President Trump and FEMA on August 22. Federal funding and assistance were later approved on August 25 to help rebuild the community.
Much of the devastation remains as restoration efforts across the islands continue and roads start to open up after the flooding.
Puerto Rico has since faced similar struggles.
Roughly 33% of the island has been in extreme drought conditions and 30% in severe drought conditions. Farmers and families have been without running water after experiencing record heat levels in July, which was “the driest month on record in San Juan in more than 120 years,” according to NBC News.
Puerto Rico Governor Jenniffer González-Colón submitted a formal request to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a Drought Disaster Declaration on August 10 that grants federal funds to the farmers impacted by the drought.
The request was approved 16 days later. On August 26, farmers in 26 municipalities received access to federal assistance programs, including the Emergency Loan Program designed to help farmers stay afloat in the dry conditions.
Herron encouraged people to remember these recent disasters when voting in the upcoming midterm elections.
“It’s election season,” Herron said, “and voters better decide quickly who is going to save us.”
Howard University Institute for Advanced Study Researchers Kaila Philo and Tricia DeSouza contributed to this report.
