EDGARD, La. — Flapping in the wind, blue roof tarps still mark Hurricane Ida’s wrath. It has been 29 months since the second-most damaging storm to hit Louisiana, bringing gaps in the country’s federal aid and recovery process to the forefront. Beneath the tarps, idle homes sag into the earth as the shadowy bloom of […]
Extreme Weather
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
How Labor Rights and Infrastructure Improvements May Limit This Silent Killer
It was just his second day on the job at the Modesto Junk Company in California’s Central Valley — but it was the region’s 34th consecutive day of 90-plus-degree weather. Feeling dizzy, he asked for a break around 2 p.m. The 40-year-old never received one. Later, a co-worker found him unconscious and sprawled across the […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
How to Protect Yourself During Record-Setting Heat Wave
The dangerous heat wave sitting over two-thirds of the country comes two weeks after the globe’s average temperature was the highest recorded in 12,000 years. In Phoenix, one of the fastest-growing cities for Black people, temperatures have topped 110 degrees for three weeks straight. In Houston, the heat index pushed 110 degrees for multiple days. […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
How Biden’s Goal to ‘Electrify Everything’ Contributed to a Flooding Crisis
Sometimes, even when it’s not raining, 78-year-old widower Willie Horstead Jr. thinks he hears the floodwaters seeping beneath his home, sucking the metal box deeper into Alabama’s rich soil. When it does rain – which is often in Coffee County, Alabama – the U.S. Army veteran is afraid he’ll fall through the floor of his […]
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Get Prepared: Researchers Predict Very Active Hurricane Season
Get ready for a very active hurricane season, as researchers are forecasting there could be nine coming this year. Since 2014, a team at the University of Arizona has accurately predicted hurricane activity in the U.S. Typically, the Gulf and East coast see roughly seven hurricanes annually, with less than half being major events, but […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
As Disasters Pile Up, Louisiana’s Hurricane Victims Wonder if They’ll Ever Recover
Nearly two years after Hurricane Ida gutted her home, Maria Populis cries every day because she’s lost everything – and fears she’ll be homeless. “I’m not supposed to be living on nobody’s street,” the 60-year-old grandmother says. “I feel like a failure.” The record-breaking storm destroyed her Edgard, Louisiana, home – which had been in […]
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Want to Better Prepare Black Communities for Tornadoes? Erode the Income Gap.
The severity of the recent network of tornadoes that practically erased a majority Black rural town in Mississippi off the map would’ve leveled any community in its path — but the region’s high amount of mobile homes, low access to information networks, and poor insurance rates created a perfect storm. “Tornadic storms will continue to […]
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A New Phenomenon Threatens to Disrupt Black Homeownership
As Black Americans have strived for generations to own homes — and then to afford to stay in them — a recent study has revealed a new phenomenon that threatens to disrupt Black homeownership once again. Thousands of American homes in flood-prone areas are overvalued by as much as $237 billion, making it even more […]
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How Natural Disasters Create Voting Crises
Voting has often been inconvenient for residents of Florida’s Dunbar community. For decades, they fought to get an early-voting site in their Gulf Coast neighborhood. It finally came to fruition ahead of the 2020 election, but now, just two years later, that polling site has shut down. The story is similar for many in this […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
FEMA Sent Disaster Relief to Fort Myers’ Black Neighborhoods. Where Is It?
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Volunteers tossed cases of water off the back of a truck from Tennessee outside of First Assembly Cornerstone Church. Inside, a group of women filled to-go containers with macaroni and cheese, pulled pork, sandwich buns, and corn. It had been a week since Hurricane Ian devastated this Gulf Coast city, uprooting decades-old […]