Strategic Planning

National Leadership and Institutional Change

• Disaster responders say ending FEMA would move tasks and costs to states, local governments (Nebraska Examiner, January 30, 2025)
• FEMA Is Losing Employees at an Alarming Rate (GovExec, May 9, 2023): “Burnout is leading to attrition as disasters spike, but watchdog also blames agency for poor workforce management.”
• ‘We’re being dragged along’: Extreme weather puts governors to the test (Politico, October 13, 2021): “Now there’s worry storms made more intense and frequent by a warming planet could become a fact of life for northeast states, much the way wildfires and drought have beset the West. As that happens, governors more familiar with snowy winters will increasingly be forced to turn at a moment’s notice to disaster mode, setting aside elections, budgets and normal policymaking to become emergency coordinators. They’ll likely face questions about what’s been done to prepare for the worst — and what could or should have been to save lives.”
• New Disaster Safety Board Introduced: U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) announced they will introduce The Disaster Learning and Life Saving Act of 2020. The bipartisan legislation will create a new permanent and independent board to study the underlying causes of disaster related fatalities and property damage nationwide. The National Disaster Safety Board (NDSB) will make recommendations to all levels of government on how to improve the resiliency of communities across the country.
• IAEM Recommendations for Action During the First 100 Days of the Administration of President-Elect Biden (December 3, 2020)

The Politics of Disaster Risk

• Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots (NPR, December 20, 2024)
• Angry crowds boo and throw eggs at Spanish king as he visits flood-hit Valencia (CNN, November 4, 2024): “Part of the problem has been political. Mazon and Sanchez are from different parties, and under Spain’s political system, Spain’s federal government cannot release emergency funds and resources without the authorization from a regional government. “
• An Idaho health department isn’t allowed to give Covid-19 vaccines anymore. Experts say it’s a first (CNN, November 3, 2024)
• Why FEMA’s disaster relief gets political (WUSF, October 20, 2024)
• Florida, the state of denial, needs to eliminate ‘heat index’ for climate change relief (USA Today, June 1, 2024)
• More Flood Victims Move to Sue California Local and State Agencies (Government Technology, October 2, 2023): This article is an example of citizens holding public officials and public institutions accountable for disaster risk management failures or malpractice.
• School board votes against allowing state funding of Ocean Shores tsunami tower (The Daily World, January 19, 2023): This article gives remarkable detail about the political decisions and discussions that play a role in defining how disaster risk is managed locally.
• Biden, DeSantis and how leaders can be defined by hurricanes (Washington Post, September 29)
• State forester rescinds wildfire risk map in response to public, political outcry (Oregon Capital Chronicle, August 5, 2022): “Several Republican lawmakers in southern and eastern Oregon said the map was flawed, causing people to lose insurance or face doubled premiums”
• Blowing It: A Brief History of Hurricane Politics (The Observer, October 7, 2016)

Improving Emergency Management Programs

• The US needs a new system for declaring natural disasters and distributing federal aid (Brookings, July 14, 2023)
• Disaster after the disaster: A maze of 30 federal entities complicate recovery after tragedy, report finds (USA Today, November 19, 2022)
• The Biden Team Announces Pay Raises of Up to $20,000 Annually for Federal Firefighters (Government Executive, June 21, 2022)
• Flood me once, shame on me. Flood me twice, shame on FEMA? (Grist, July 16, 2021): ” Over the last 20 years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has failed to enforce a law that would have made U.S. cities and towns more resilient to the impacts of climate change, according to a recent federal investigation by the Office of Inspector General in the Department of Homeland Security. “

Emergency Management Reform

• Remove FEMA from Homeland Security bureaucracy. It will quicken natural disaster response. | Editorial (Palm Beach Post, October 1, 2023)

Equity / Environmental & Social Justice / Gender

• Is America Just Going to Abandon Its Towns Falling Into the Ocean? (The New York Times, January 4, 2025)
• Upending a longstanding paradigm, cardiologists embrace ZIP codes, not race, to predict heart risk (STAT, September 6, 2024)
• ‘We cannot deny history again’: Brazil floods show how German migration silenced Black and Indigenous stories (The Guardian, June 27, 2024)
• Rural America Lags Cities in Helping People Beat the Heat (New York Times, June 20, 2024)
• Insurance costs have put 100 Habitat for Humanity homeowners at risk of foreclosure, director says (NOLA, June 12, 2024)
• Their Florida ‘Paradise’ Keeps Flooding, but Some Can’t Afford a Solution (New York Times, June 5, 2024)
• As more older Americans move to the coasts, rising seas are wiping out their homes — and retirement dreams. (AARP, May 28, 2024)
• Study: Climate migration will leave the elderly behind (Popular Science, January 12, 2024)
• Black communities in Southeastern states are more likely to be exposed to extreme weather events than overall population (CNN, December 1, 2023)
• U. S. Disasters Disparately Impact Low Income Homeowners and Renters (Seattle Medium, November 30, 2023)
• Promoting Equitable Wildfire Recovery in Lahaina: Four Lessons for Local Leaders, from Colorado’s Marshall Fire (Urban Institute, November 29, 2023)
• Who Lives in the Community Disaster Resilience Zones? (Urban Institute, November 10, 2023)
• Extreme Heat Pushes More Farmworkers to Harvest at Night, Creating New Risks (Inside Climate News, October 31, 2023)
• How FEMA Can Prioritize Equity in Disaster Recovery Assistance (CAP, July 19, 2023)
• Racial disparities are working against disaster recovery for people of color. Climate change could make it worse (CNN, April 17, 2023)
• The Supreme Court wrestles with questions over the Navajo Nation’s water rights (NPR, March 20, 2023)
• Climate-Proof Towns Are Popping Up Across the U.S. But Not Everyone Can Afford To Live There (Time, October 28, 2022)
• U. S. to Pay Millions to Move Tribes Threatened by Climate Change (New York Times, November 30, 2022): “In addition to Newtok, the other tribes to receive $25 million were Napakiak, a village on the shore of the Kuskokwim River that is losing 25 to 50 feet of land each year to erosion.”
• Expert Monica Sanders Analyzes Disproportionate Impact Of Natural Disasters On BIPOC Communities (Forbes, October 25, 2022)
• The rising cost of energy and limited access to housing with A/C is creating a dangerous summer for low-income Texans (CNN, July 23, 2022)
• The country trailblazing the fight against disasters (BBC, July 19, 2022): “Bangladesh has a world-leading system to protect people from disasters, including through an army of female volunteers to better support women. What can other countries learn from it?”
• Not everyone can afford air conditioning during a brutal heat wave. Here’s how they cope (CNN, July 19, 2022)
• California Released a Bold Climate Plan, but Critics Say It Will Harm Vulnerable Communities and Undermine Its Goals (Inside Climate News, July 5, 2022): “Environmental justice and climate advocacy groups say the draft plan relies too heavily on carbon capture and could increase pollution in low-income neighborhoods.”
• Katrina Survivors Were Told They Could Use Grant Money to Rebuild. Now They’re Being Sued for It. (ProPublica, May 12, 2022): “HUD and the state of Louisiana paid $62 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that the Road Home, the signature post-Katrina rebuilding program, disproportionately hurt poor communities and people of color by basing grants in part on pre-storm values rather than the cost of rebuilding, leaving some homeowners unable to complete renovations. That policy’s effects are still reverberating in the form of neighborhood blight and depressed home values.”
• Historic Black town lies one hurricane away from disaster (Associated Press, April 28, 2022)
• What Does Climate Justice in California Look Like? (Inside Climate News, April 20, 2022): “With rapid global warming increasingly harming low-income people of color, community advocates and scholars at a climate summit say the state can’t reach its climate targets without prioritizing equity.”
• ‘They don’t offer anything’: Disaster survivors left behind when FEMA, states don’t help (NBC, March 16, 2022)
• Scant mention of disabled community, despite higher risk of climate change impact (Stuff, March 4, 2022): “Disabled people were likely to be left behind in critical events, such as natural disasters like flooding and fires, and there were a lot of risks for disabled people not being able to be evacuated, [Dr. Esther Woodbury] said.”
• Racial and ethnic data can guide equitable disaster recovery (The Hill, March 1, 2022): “As Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria have illustrated, climate-induced disasters intersect with existing and historic systemic challenges like segregation, economic inequality and housing discrimination — all of which disproportionately affect communities of color.”
• Climate-driven floods will disproportionately affect Black communities, study finds (NPR, January 31, 2022)
• Fighting Redlining and Climate Change with Transformative Climate Communities (The Greenlining Institute, November 2021)
• Study: Indigenous tribes lost 99% of land to colonization (Grist, October 28, 2021): “Settlers pushed tribes into land more at risk from climate change. Justin Farrell, a sociology professor at Yale University and the lead author of the paper, said that not only were tribal lands stolen, shrunken or wiped off the map completely, but that tribes’ present-day lands face “increased exposure to climate change risks and hazards, especially extreme heat and less precipitation.”
• Indigenous activists come to D.C. with a message for Biden: Declare a national climate emergency (Washington Post, October 12, 2021): “Environmental justice activists are frustrated by what they say is a lack of action from the Biden administration to deliver on climate-related campaign promises. They bring up the recent landmark report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as proof of the urgency needed to implement sweeping measures to slow the pace of emissions.”
• The flood that drowned American dreams (BBC, October 5, 2021): “The tragedies have laid bare the ways in which extreme weather events ravage decaying infrastructure, devastate low-income communities and deepen social inequality, leading to what experts call a “climate apartheid”.”
• Biden’s racial justice agenda must be central to post-Ida disaster recovery (Salon, September 15, 2021): “Disaster recovery has only worsened the racial wealth gap — but Biden has a historic opportunity to change that.”
• FEMA Defines Equity in its Mission of Making Programs More Accessible (FEMA, September 9, 2021): “The definition is a result of recently announced initiatives on how the agency is advancing equity. At FEMA, our definition of equity is: “The consistent and systematic fair, just and impartial treatment of all individuals.”“
• FEMA Makes Changes to Individual Assistance Policies to Advance Equity for Disaster Survivors (FEMA, September 2, 2021): “FEMA Makes Changes to Individual Assistance Policies to Advance Equity for Disaster Survivors”
• Economic and Racial Inequality in FEMA SFHA Flood Zone Designations (RisQ Inc., July 20, 2021): ” Even after accounting for housing cost-burden, non-white populations are significantly more likely to face flood risk that is not captured in FEMA SFHAs — at every level of flood risk. Asian, Black, Native American, and Latino populations are only ~29%, ~65%, ~70%, and ~72%, respectively, as likely as white-alone populations to have flood risk accounted for by FEMA SFHAs”
• Why FEMA is Denying Aid to Black Disaster Survivors in the Deep South (Washington Post, July 11, 2021)
• Why FEMA Aid Is Unavailable To Many Who Need It The Most (WXXI News, June 29, 2021): “The poorest renters were 23% less likely than higher-income renters to get housing help.”
• Inside FEMA, a Reckoning on Race and Flooded Mansions (E&E News, March 15, 2021): The US Federal Emergency Management Agency exams its practices to see how inequities are influencing the delivery of emergency management support before, during, and after disasters in the United States.
• Disaster Management Is Too White, Official Tells Congress (Scientific American, July 29, 2020): “An overwhelming number of emergency managers in the U.S. are white, and the profession must diversify to reverse decades of disaster response policies that have shunned minority communities and perpetuated racial discrimination, a state emergency manager told Congress yesterday.”

Capacity Development and Decentralization of Responsibility

• Not The Government’s ‘911’: FEMA Stretched With Multiple Deployments (NPR News, 2021, 4/3)

Resilience Concept

• We Have to Stop Underwriting People Who Move to Climate Danger Zones (New York Times, January 16, 2025)
• What is Community Resilience and Why Does It Matter? (Urban Footprint, STATIC)
• See if your city is poised to bounce back from the next climate disaster (Washington Post, November 20, 2024)
• Are you buying a flood-prone home? It’s hard to find out (CBC News, November 18, 2024)
• A tsunami could wipe this Norwegian town off the map. Why isn’t everyone leaving? (National Geographic, October 30, 2024)
• ‘I talk about moving daily’: Florida residents weigh whether to leave after destructive storms (CNN, October 14, 2024)
• Hurricane Milton damages more than property as some storm-rattled residents plan exit (Miami Herald-Tribune, October 12, 2024)
• These houses survived one of the country’s worst wildfires. Here’s how (NPR, September 17, 2024)
• ‘I panic when I hear rain’: New York’s deadly basement apartments face growing flooding risk (The Guardian, August 30, 2024)
• Sale of $1.9M Nantucket beach house for $200K spotlights U.S. real estate’s climate problem (Axios, June 12, 2024)
• In Weston, locals decide between preserving downtown and preventing future flood damage (Vermont Public, November 15, 2023)
• How does climate change threaten your neighborhood? A new map has the details. (Grist, October 2, 2023): This article describes and links to a resilience index based on many equity-driven indicators. Exposure alone does not drive resilience – rather, it is the combination of exposure and coping capacities (which are primarily a factor of equity).
• Babcock Ranch: Florida’s first hurricane-proof town (BBC, September 4, 2023)
• Why we all need to think like Floridians now (Washington Post, September 5, 2023)
• Data Reflects Nation’s Need for Disaster Recovery Shift (Government Executive, December 2, 2022): “A new report shows that 90 percent of U.S. counties have experienced a climate-related federal disaster declaration and suggests that a paradigm shift from recovery to resilience is critical.”
• NOAA awards over $15 million for climate science, community resilience (NOAA, October 25, 2022)
• Dubai named world’s most resilient city by United Nations (The National News, September 23, 2021): “Dubai was ranked first globally for its resilience and recognised as a role model for sustainability by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.”
• Small towns need big focus on resilience (UNSW Newsroom, August 11, 2021): ““This requires genuine engagement with people and listening to identify areas of need, and trusting local knowledge and experience to understand how we can further reduce risks,” says Prof. Sanderson.”
• What Do We Mean by ‘Community Resilience’? A Systematic Literature Review of How It Is Defined in the Literature (PLoS, February 1, 2017)

Disaster Fatigue

• Frequent natural disasters straining a weary public (Spectrum Local News, September 18, 2023)

Technology

• Bacterial ‘blood’ could heal cracks in concrete (Popular Science, December 8, 2023)
• NOAA leverages AI for weather forecast translation (Government Executive, October 30, 2023)
• How Do We Know El Niño Is Coming? NASA Satellites Are Tracking It (Inverse, October 19, 2023)
• The big idea: can we predict the climate of the future? (The Guardian, October 2, 2023): “We’re pouring money into computer models – but could they lead us astray?”
• Wildfires and natural disasters are worse than ever, due to climate change: This startup helps pinpoint where they’ll hit (CNBC, November 7, 2022): “Nobody can predict the future, but a San Francisco-based startup called Kettle seems able to predict where wildfires could start in California.”
• Weather subscription services are increasingly essential on an overheating Earth (Protocol, April 28, 2022): ” A growing number of people are subscribing to hyperlocalized and activity-specific apps and websites to keep ahead of the ever-changing weather.”
• Google Wants to Save the Planet With Satellite Images (Bloomberg, November 11, 2021): “The company’s little-known Earth Engine is helping nonprofits and researchers manage deforestation, floods, and droughts.”
• The 7 Biggest Ethical Challenges of Artificial Intelligence (Linked In Articles, August 24, 2021)

Infrastructure Risk

• Flooding could shut down a quarter of all critical infrastructure in the U.S. (Axios, October 11, 2021): The new national inventory of flood risk during the next thirty years, which takes into account climate change-driven increases in sea levels and heavy precipitation events, is the first of its kind.

US Military Adaptation Efforts

• As climate change worsens, military eyes base of the future on Gulf Coast (Washington Post, August 6, 2023)

Political Implications of Disaster / Humanitarian Assistance

• Morocco’s reluctance to accept quake aid baffles foreign governments (Washington Post, September 11, 2023)

Interesting Issues

• Climate-Risk Scores Are the New Big Number for Homebuyers (Barrons, January 7, 2025)
• ‘Every home has risks’: Real estate websites now spelling out climate change risks for buyers (Boston 25 News, January 2, 2025)
• Russia leveraged hurricane disinformation to deepen U.S. divisions (Axios, October 24, 2024)
• Storm forecasts have never been more accurate. Meteorologists say they’ve never faced so much pushback. (NBC, October 16, 2024)
• Are foreign adversaries China and Russia amplifying hurricane misinformation? Early signs say yes (Politifact, October 14, 2024)
• Meteorologists Face Harassment and Death Threats Amid Hurricane Disinformation (New York Times, October 14, 2024)
• Federal personnel are facing threats during hurricane response, DHS chief warns (GovExec, October 11, 2024)
• How FEMA tries to combat rumors and conspiracy theories about Milton and Helene (NPR, October 9, 2024)
• US Republicans condemn hurricane misinformation spread by their own party (Reuters, October 9, 2024)
• FEMA chief issues dire warning on hurricane disinformation (Axios, October 8, 2024)
• Fact check: Six days of Trump lies about the Hurricane Helene response (CNN, October 7, 2024)
• After the Deluge, the Lies: Misinformation and Hoaxes About Helene Cloud the Recovery (US News and World Report, October 5, 2024)
• Politically charged rumors and conspiracy theories about Helene flourish on X (NPR, October 3, 2024)
• Baltimore Bridge Collapse Sparks Wild Conspiracies — Though Officials Continue To Dispel Them (Forbes, March 28, 2024)
• How the Baltimore bridge collapse spawned a torrent of instant conspiracy theories (CNN, March 28, 2024)
• Misinformation about the Baltimore Bridge collapse is already being spread on social media (Indy100, March 26, 2024)
• FEMA chief “very concerned” about disinformation from U.S. adversaries after disasters (Axios, December 4, 2023)
• When Facts Don’t Matter: The Climate Case (Forbes, October 18, 2023)