Disasters

DISASTER WARNINGWhat Another Texas Flood Revealed About the State’s Warning System
By Laura Mallonee
Texas revamped its early warning system after a Hill Country flood killed 139 people last year. July’s historic flood revealed what it accomplished — and what’s left to do.
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POLITICIZATIONIs Withholding Federal Counterterrorism Funds from States – as FEMA Has Threatened – Legal?
By Austin Sarat
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued new grant guidelines that threaten to withhold counterterrorism funds from states that do not comply with President Donald Trump’s election security directives.
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POLITICIZATIONStates Challenge Trump’s Move to Tie Disaster Aid to Election, Immigration Policies
By Dana DiFilippo
Twenty-six states accuse the Trump administration in a new lawsuit of illegally threatening to withhold billions in counterterrorism and emergency preparedness funds from states that don’t adopt sweeping election changes or cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
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DISASTER ATTRIBUTIONThe Science of Extreme Event Attribution — Which Analyzes Climate Change’s Influence on Specific Weather Events — Has Advanced, But Challenges Remain
A new report provides a comprehensive assessment of the current capabilities of extreme event attribution (EEA) — a scientific field that analyzes whether and to what extent human-caused climate change influenced an individual extreme weather event, such as a specific heat wave or hurricane
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NATURAL DISASTERSFeds Increasingly Leave Local Governments Hanging When Climate Disasters Hit: Report
By Isiah Holmes
Communities that ask for federal assistance when climate disasters hit can’t count on that help to arrive.
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DISASTER RECOVERYWhen Disaster Recovery Becomes a Way of Life: Community Disaster Fatigue Is on the Rise with More Frequent Floods
By Lee Ann Rawlins Williams
Flash flooding has been tearing up communities across the U.S., with heavy downpours sending creeks and rivers rushing over their banks. If this feels like déjà vu after two summers of flash flooding across America, imagine being a community that has had to live through flooding like this again and again.
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DISATER RECOVERYCongress Set to Overhaul Disaster Recovery, Speeding Up New Home Builds
By Jake Bittle
There are a lot of ways for disaster victims to get help in the immediate aftermath of a flood or fire, and now there is a new way: A little-noticed section in a bipartisan housing bill could accelerate new construction after major disasters.
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FOOD SECURITYU.S. Needs New Drought Assessment Framework as Droughts Become More Severe and Unpredictable
By Solomon Self
Droughts in the United States are becoming more intense and unpredictable, and the nation needs to develop a new drought assessment framework to better understand and address them. A new framework should be developed which distinguishes between short-term operational needs, such as drought monitoring and emergency response, and long-term planning for water management, infrastructure, and climate adaptation.
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COASTAL CHALLENGESSea-Level Rise Has Increased Frequency of Extreme Coastal Flooding Worldwide: Study
By Stacey Plaisance
Human-caused sea-level rise has significantly increased the frequency of extreme coastal flooding worldwide. New research found that coastal flooding events expected only once every 100 years are now, on average, about 12 times more likely to occur.
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CLIMATE-CHANGE CHALLENGESAcross Europe, Heat Adaptation Plans Are Being Put to a Brutal Test
By Naveena Sadasivam
As global warming relentlessly continues to push temperatures upward, cities across Europe rehearsing what it might be like to live in the future when temperatures are projected to hit 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Those strategies are now being put to one of their biggest tests.
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DISASTERSSecond Huge Tsunami Caused by Climate Change in Two Years
The side of a mountain slid into an Alaskan fjord last August, producing a tsunami 481 meters high, the second highest ever recorded, according to a new study involving a UCL researcher.
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COASTAL CHALLENGESCan Coney Island’s Dunes Protect Against Another Sandy?
By Leah Cantor
Coastal dune ecosystem restoration is a nature-based solution that can help reduce the impact of coastal flooding and erosion, offering residents protection from the next, inevitable storm surge.
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EMERGENCY HOUSINGReusable Emergency Housing Provide Their Own Power, Water
By Zach Winn
A startup making emergency housing cheaper and faster to deploy won this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. Uplift Microhome’s modular housing units can provide their own power and water, for faster deployments.
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CONSPIRACY THEORIESConspiracy Theories Meet Real News: How QAnon Tries to Hijack the Internet
By Catherine Couturier
You’ve seen the hashtags: #love #vote #child. Are they as banal as they seem, or are they being used by the far right to attract unsuspecting readers?
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DROUGHTAs Drought Worsens, Western States Brace for Wildfires, Water Shortages
By Alex Brown
From the Rockies to the Cascades to the Sierra Nevada, mountainsides across the West are sparsely covered by the snow that usually blankets the high country well into the summer. That snowpack is like a savings account that the West draws on when the hot, dry months arrive, but this yearWestern states are heading into the summer with a desperately low balance — threatening wildfires, drinking water, crops, electricity and more.
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