Disasterology: February 2023
This newsletter is a compilation of recent disaster ~things~ that I think are cool, important, or otherwise of interest to people who are intrigued with disaster (broadly defined).
There’s a little something for everyone!
Brace yourselves. This newsletter is coming in piping hot.
This (short) month has been a voyage of emergency management headlines. (I do actually need y’all to chill out though because Substack really does have a word limit for these newsletters…)
What the hell happened in Ohio?
It’s not every day that a simple large-scale emergency makes me stop in my tracks (sorry) but the response to the Norfolk Southern Ohio Train Derailment has been disturbing. In case you’ve been blissfully living under a rock: On February 3rd at 9:00pm a train carrying a variety of toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio near the Pennsylvania border. What unfolded over the next week is a case study in corporate power creating risk, failed public communication, and the very real dangers of law enforcement responding to a disaster.
Incidentally, it has been a good reminder that disasters do bring people together. For example, both the left and the right have perpetuated conspiracy theories about FEMA this month (bad). On the other hand, they have also both seemed to agree that we shouldn’t arrest people who won’t evacuate during a disaster (good). You win some, you lose some!
I won’t say anything else about this incident here because I wrote The Longest Blogpost Ever analyzing the response. If you have the time to set aside and read it, that would be great. Of course, there will be much more to say when more of the specifics regarding decision-making come to light.
For a shorter read, I wrote an op-ed for MSNBC looking at the early local response and communication challenges. For a watch instead of a read, I was on This Week talking about similar issues.
I’ll end with another plug for the need to create a National Disaster Safety Board. The ineffective response to this incident really shows how the NTSB’s mission falls short of investigating all that needs investigating.
What the hell is going on in Florida?
The Florida Legislature and Governor DeSantis have created an “Unauthorized Alien Transport Program” under the state emergency management agency in an effort to legalize and finance sending migrants, seemingly against their will, to blue states. This is a wildly inappropriate and dangerous use of an emergency management agency, and the profession must fight back. Incidentally, the recipient state’s emergency management agencies are the ones who have been stepping in to provide shelter and humanitarian aid to the people who have fallen victim to DeSantis, and now soon the Florida Emergency Management Agency’s, cruelty.
If you know anyone working to organize against this or would like to be involved in organizing against this, please reach out to me. I hope to have more on this in the newsletter next month.
Meme Break
Other Incidents of Note
This month’s catastrophe was of course the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. You can read more from a disaster research perspective here. The focus has largely been on immediate lifesaving needs. Unfortunately, a concern many of us have voiced regarding Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter came to fruition during search and rescue operations which you can read about here. There has also been a resurgence of interest in the importance of building codes, as there always is after a major earthquake. As a reminder, you need to 1. Have the appropriate building codes and 2. Actively enforce those building codes for them to be effective.
There are some harrowing stories coming out of New Zealand regarding Cyclone Gabrielle. The weather has been weathering in California. There was a particularly bad tornado in Houston last month and several tornadoes across a few states this week.
Australia somehow lost a radioactive capsule in the outback but they found it so I guess it’s fine? We also had a small alien scare.
Emergency Management News
The COVID declarations are ending on May 11th. I’m very curious to hear more about what the impacts will be for emergency management agencies. I know many have moved on from COVID response, but I know others haven’t.
Speaking of FEMA… I want to shout out Emily Schwing, a journalist in Alaska, who has done some excellent disaster reporting this year. Apparently, a FEMA contractor made up a language instead of correctly translating FEMA recovery documents into two Alaska Native languages. She also covered the $25 million grant given to Newtok, Alaska from the Interior Department to move the village to higher ground. Finally, she reported on some very short and confusing FEMA assistance deadlines for Typhoon Merbok.
Speaking of FEMA assistance deadline issues... over in Louisiana 60 nonprofits banded together to get FEMA assistance deadlines extended.
Speaking of Gulf Coast states in recovery… Florida’s checking in too. Hurricane Ian recovery isn’t going great.
Speaking of recoveries dragging on…These kinds of recovery problems don’t go away quickly as you’ll see in California where the Woolsey fire recovery trudges along four years later.
Speaking of places facing long recoveries… the recovery in eastern Kentucky is quite desperate. The limited intervention model of individual and household recovery was not designed to help communities where 54% make less than $30,000 a year, only 4% have flood insurance, and only around $20 million was raised in donations. We’re talking $100s of millions short. The federal government and Kentucky must do more including making flood insurance affordable.
Speaking of certain groups of people not being able to access enough recovery aid… the majority of farm workers in California do not qualify for most state and federal aid programs. Sonoma county has approved some relief funds for lost wages but it’s not nearly enough.
Speaking of certain groups of people not getting help from government… here’s a Lawsuit To Watch. A civil lawsuit has been filed against the city of San Antonio for failing to account for people with disabilities during the winter storm two years ago.
Speaking of local emergency management… politicians in the city of Buffalo were pretending they don’t know that they need an emergency manager after January’s blizzard killed at least 39 people. Be serious, please. This month they funded an EM position, but I haven’t a clue how you can be a “climate refuge” without a robust emergency management agency.
Speaking of bad decisions made by local government… a school district in Oregon voted against building a tsunami tower at the Ocean Shores Elementary School for reasons that are deeply illogical.
The US is increasingly struggling to keep the lights on. Part of that is because the failure to maintain our infrastructure is colliding with climate change. Another issue is that neo-Nazis are increasingly targeting key US infrastructure. Seems bad!
Although I’ve very much become a disaster policy girlie, my first true identity in our field was as a disaster nonprofit girlie and OH BOY do we have disaster nonprofit news. Sean Penn’s disaster nonprofit, CORE, is a smorgasbord of scandal.
Some promising news: for the first time ever a woman, Elizabeth Leitman, issued a thunderstorm watch in the US. I, for one, am all for putting women in charge of emergency management-related things. How about putting Indigenous women in charge of controlled burns, next?
Finally, before we move on to a book recommendation take a look at the intersection of climate change and book preservation. In short, our books are at risk of disaster.
Book Recommendation
If there is one book to read right now it’s “Bomb Trains: How Industry Greed and Regulatory Failure Put the Public At Risk” by Justin Mikulka. I first read this book back when it came out in 2019 because of my years-long dread of living a few blocks from the railroad tracks in Fargo, North Dakota where the oil trains pass through. It is only a matter of time before one of these trains carrying hazardous materials explodes in a major city where the death toll will be monstrous. It is absolutely unreasonable for the public to be taking on this kind of risk so that billion-dollar companies can make a little more profit. And, it’s reprehensible for politicians, in both parties, to be taking money from the railroad industry in exchange for not passing stricter safety regulations.
Read more about the book here and buy it here (sorry for the Amazon link but it seems to be a bit hard to come by at independent shops).
News From The Disaster Art World
If you are going to be anywhere New York City before April 23rd I strongly recommend going to see the no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria exhibit at The Whitney. I saw it last week and it’s really powerful. Art is always important but, I think, especially in the wake of catastrophe.
The End Bits
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Thank you, once again, for an informative update on what's going wrong in the world and how to make it better.