@milee30 - Sure, so I actually live in an area that was impacted by one of these natural disasters too. Personally, because many colleges were flexible with ED/EA deadlines because of these unforeseen disasters, I knew many people who rightfully took advantage of the extensions even if their original plan was to apply RD and even if they weren’t affected by the hurricane.
For example, one of my friends, who is a top student and had to move out of her flooded house, decided to apply to around 20 schools (she originally planned to apply to less, but her mindset after the hurricane was: “I got fee waivers now because of my situation so I might as well see where I can get in”). She also met all the EA deadlines for the schools that had that option.
And your point that a record # of kids in you area still applied to college EA/ED strengthens my hypothesis because that just shows that schools did not lose early applicants from the main areas that were affected (which also make up some of the statistically largest geographical areas where applicants are located from).
Take Penn for example, they extended their ED deadline for 10 extra days! In an article on the Daily Pennsylvanian (http://www.thedp.com/article/2017/11/penn-ed-applicant-pool-record-high-higher-ed-ivy-league), they highlight the fact that they both extended the deadline and received a record # of ED applications.
Perhaps natural disasters did not contribute as much as I am thinking, but I think it is an important factor to consider. For some reason, “people just realized that applying ED/EA is better” is not convincing me that that is the main factor contributing to the drastic jump in early applications. Like why this year did everyone decide it was best to apply ED/EA? I would expect it to be more gradual.
Let me know your thoughts.