Disasterology: May 2021
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!
Hello Friends!
I wanted to send this today, so you’d all have at least one good e-mail in your inboxes after this long weekend and on the first official day of the Atlantic Hurricane Season.
The State of Emergency Management
The good news is no one was killed by part of a Chinese rocket that fell uncontrolled back to earth. The bad news is that this wasn’t a one-time thing and may occur more frequently.
There was extensive flooding across parts of Texas and Louisiana. News coverage was centered around Lake Charles given that President Biden had been there talking about the infrastructure bill just days earlier. There have been a series of early wildfires throughout the west along with severe drought and the Colonial Pipeline Cyberattack on the east coast.
Things were busy globally too. The numbers for 2020 show that 40.5 million people were uprooted due to crisis. Mount Nyiragongo erupted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The crisis in Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel was escalated. India dealt with Cyclone Tauktae and Cyclone Yaas. A storm during an ultramarathon left 21 dead in northwestern China. Of course, COVID is ongoing. Here’s a piece from P BS that looks at the inequality in COVID response in Brazil.
Disaster Death Tolls
(I did a Twitter thread on this so feel free to skip if you read it.)
According to a Buzzfeed investigation, the Texas Winter Storm death toll was not 151 as official records show but rather somewhere closer to 700. Incidentally, a study also found this month that the COVID death toll may be doubled official records. Of course, this is not surprising given the issues surrounding tallying disaster death tolls.
Quantifying disaster deaths is a notoriously complicated and controversial task. There are a number of factors that contribute to inaccurate counts including those in power wanting to hide the true number, politics, racism, and disputes over what “counts” as a disaster death. There are also a number of logistical challenges such as actually finding those who have been killed, the systems used to tally the dead, and bad record-keeping.
These are known issues that come up repeatedly after disasters with major death tolls. Both the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake & fire have had their totals negotiated throughout the past century. The Galveston death toll traditionally is presented as a range from 6,000-12,000. More recently there’s been a coalescing around 8,000 due to this research. The official death toll in San Francisco was revised from 478 to 3,400 in 2006. There is little discussion about it now, but the Katrina death toll is still disputed with a range from 800-2000. If indirect deaths were ever included it would be much, much higher. Following Hurricane Maria independent studies found the death toll to be upwards of 4,645 people instead of the 94 claimed by the Puerto Rican government. In fact, in the wake of Maria, Congress called together a panel of experts to assess how counting disaster deaths could be done more accurately.
There are some practical reasons why we need to be better about accurately identifying cause of death as it relates to disaster. An obvious reason is so that family members can access aid like funeral assistance. It’s also a reminder that using death toll as the measure of a disaster is never a good idea. That number alone does not capture the extent of the destruction.
~MEME~ Break:
The time has come to share my long-held theory that the cast of Sex and the City align with the four phases of emergency management.
The Book of the Month:
“The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America” by Lawrence T. Brown
I read the words “Category 5 Hypersegregation” and was immediately all in.
This book contends that “the nation is currently teetering on its axis as American Apartheid threatens to tear the nation apart”. It asks, “How can American cities promote racial equity, end redlining, and reverse the damaging health- and wealth-related effects of segregation?” The subjects of this book underly everything we do in emergency management making it critical reading. Brown clarifies terms like gentrification and racial equity (that we use frequently in the disaster context) while weaving them throughout U.S. history. This narrative is backed by research and explicit instructions on how to pursue change.
The most brilliant and effective books don’t tell you what to think, they provide you a framework for how to think – which is exactly what Brown has accomplished here. I’m going to be pulling this book off the shelf again and again.
The Disasterology Monthly Newsletter gives this 10/10 stars.
You can read more here and buy it here.
Important Disaster Related Media Coverage This Month:
There was a fair amount of coverage about the profession of emergency management this month. There was this great piece on the emergency management workforce and leadership has to be more diverse. There were also more articles on burnout within FEMA, in local communities, and generally. This article looks specifically at understaffing of federal fire crews.
Response
There’s federal money available to house the homeless. No one’s taking it.
Adam Mahoney for Grist
Palestine Is Suffering an Ecological Apartheid
Brian Kahn for Earther
‘FIND THIS FUCK:’ Inside Citizen’s Dangerous Effort to Cash In On Vigilantism
Joseph Cox & Jason Koebler for Vice
Texas spent $1.1 million fighting a lawsuit from prisoners who asked for soap, hand sanitizer, and social-distancing measures, documents say
Bill Bostock for Business Insider
My majority-Black city went weeks without potable water. This wouldn’t happen in a Whiter town.
Laurie Bertram Roberts for the Washington Post
Mitigation
Too Poor to Protect: When Cost-Benefit Analysis Leaves Towns to ‘Wash Away’
Penny Loeb for The Daily Yonder
Louisiana boil water notices paint a picture of the state’s failing drinking water infrastructure
Sara Sneath for Louisiana Illuminator
As Paradise Rebuilds, It’s Also Preparing for the Next Fire
Colleen Hagerty for Sierra
Hoover Dam, symbol of the modern West, faces a new test with an epic water shortage
Ian James for AZ Central
Newsom’s $1B wildfire plan favors Sierra Nevada logging over homeowners
Joshua Emerson Smith for The San Diego Union-Tribune
Recovery
The Stories We’ve Told: A Look at the Tulsa Race Massacre From The Root Archives
Genetta M. Adams for The Root
Back to the Beach: Nearly 3 years later, Florence survivors still aren’t home
Elisa Raffa, Charles Wohlforth for Fox46
What Happens When Americans Can Finally Exhale
Ed Yong for The Atlantic
2020 hurricanes dislodged about 125 coffins in southwest Louisiana, many still missing
Chris Granger for the Advocate
‘A new Maria:’ How Puerto Rico’s population decline could be the island’s next crisis
Syra Ortiz-Blanes for Miami Herald
The story of Stephen Vest’s killing and how wildfires intensify tragedy
Alastair Gee & Dani Anguiano for High Country News
A Climate Dystopia in Northern California
Naomi Klein for The Intercept
Preparedness
Experts Call for Sweeping Reforms to Prevent the Next Pandemic
Sheri Fink for the New York Times
People of color more exposed to heat islands, study finds
Drew Costley for AP
A New, Deadly Risk for Cities in Summer: Power Failures During Heat Waves
Christopher Flavelle for the New York Times
Weird Disaster Thing
The new wildfire movie Those Who Wish Me Dead is good in that Angelina Jolie and Medina Senghore fully kick ass, but it’s bad in that it is completely void of this moment. John Carr and I wrote about how disaster movies in the midst of a pandemic and the climate crisis need to hit differently.
The End Bits:
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