Natural disasters

As questions loom over the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s ability to fund disaster recovery efforts, people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by recent wildfires and storms are trying to make their way through the difficult process of securing financial aid. Residents in communities hit by Hurricane Idalia, the Maui fires or other recent disasters have a long, tough journey ahead. Early estimates suggest Idalia caused US$12 billion to $20 billion in losses, primarily in property damage, acccording to Moody’s Analytics. And rebuilding Lahaina, Hawaii, has been forecast at over $5.5 billion. How well the initial disaster response meets residents’ needs has far-reaching consequences for community resilience, especially for vulnerable residents, as we saw after Hurricanes Katrina and Maria. I am a law professor who focuses on disaster recovery and preparedness and has created several legal clinics to assist survivors. Here’s what anyone facing lo...

Leer en español. Southeast Michigan seemed like the perfect “climate haven.” “My family has owned my home since the ‘60s. … Even when my dad was a kid and lived there, no floods, no floods, no floods, no floods. Until [2021],” one southeast Michigan resident told us. That June, a storm dumped more than 6 inches of rain on the region, overloading stormwater systems and flooding homes. That sense of living through unexpected and unprecedented disasters resonates with more Americans each year, we have found in our research into the past, present and future of risk and resilience. An analysis of federal disaster declarations for weather-related events puts more data behind the fears – the average number of disaster declarations has skyrocketed since 2000 to nearly twice that of the preceding 20-year period. A powerful storm system in 2023 flooded communities across Vermont and left large par...

Wildfires destroyed the Hawaiian tourist town of Lahaina on Aug. 8 and 9, 2023, leaving many of its roughly 13,000 residents homeless. Fires also burned in other areas on Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island, and its Big Island. President Joe Biden issued a disaster declaration on Aug. 10, which authorizes federal aid for communities in harm’s way. The Conversation asked Ivis García, an urban planner who has researched disaster recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, to explain how the U.S. government responds to disasters like these and how Maui’s geography could interfere with aid delivery. Is it harder for aid to reach an island than the US mainland? The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which delivers emergency assistance after disasters, has to deal with big transportation challenges in cases like this. Initially, FEMA will be focused on bringing food, generators, cots, meals and anything else people need, and that aid will be arriving on planes and boat...

Tropical Storm Hilary made landfall on Mexico’s Baja peninsula, and its damaging wind and heavy rainfall moved into Southern California on Aug. 20, 2023. For the first time ever, the National Hurricane Center had issued a tropical storm watch for large parts of Southern California. Forecasters warned of a “potentially historic amount of rainfall,” and the governors of California and Nevada declared states of emergency. Hurricane scientist Nick Grondin explained ahead of landfall why the storm, with help from El Niño and a heat dome over much of the country, could bring flash flooding, wind damage and mudslides to the region. How rare are tropical storms in the Southwest? California had only one confirmed tropical storm landfall in the past. It was in September 1939 and called the Long Beach Tropical Storm. It caused about US$2 million dollars in damage in the Los Angeles area – that would be about $44 million today. A hurricane in 1858 came close bu...

Wildfires, pushed by powerful winds, raced through Lahaina, Hawaii, on Aug. 8 and 9, 2023, leaving a charred and smoldering landscape across the tourist town of about 13,000 residents that was once the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Nearly 100 people are believed to have died in the fires, Maui County officials said. Others were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard after going into the ocean to escape the flames. Dry grasses and strong winds, influenced by Hurricane Dora passing far to the south, heightened the risk as wildfires burned both in Maui’s tourist-filled west coast and farther inland and on the Big Island of Hawaii. Most fires in the U.S. are suppressed before they have a chance to threaten communities, but the winds were too strong to send helicopters into the sky to help contain Maui’s fires on the first day, leaving firefighters to battle the blazes from the ground. Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke issued an emergency declaration, activating the National Guard to he...