Samantha Penta, University at Albany, State University of New York
Charitable giving and government aid can shortchange disasters that follow other disasters.
The intensity of heavy downpours in Houston has increased dramatically since the 1950s, leading some people to argue the city’s disaster planning and infrastructure are not up-to-date.
AP Photo/David J. Phillip
It’s not just about rebuilding infrastructure after storms: Cities need to systematically rethink their knowledge systems which are at the heart of urban resilience.
The author, distributing medications at a shelter in Villalba, Puerto Rico.
Elimarys Perez-Colon
Evidence shows that US taxpayers are less willing to support extensive disaster relief when the victims are not white. Could that explain the Trump administration’s lackluster support for Puerto Rico?
If humanitarian need can’t move the Trump administration to save Puerto Rico, then perhaps American self-interest will: The island is a crucial part of the country’s economic and military machinery.
The Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort traveled to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
Ernest R. Scott/U.S. Air Force/Handout via Reuters
Puerto Rico’s Cayo Santiago Research Station has been a world-famous site for primate studies since 1938. Now scientists are working to save its staff and rhesus monkey colony after Hurricane Maria.
The interests of future holiday-makers are far from important in times of crisis, but tourism is economically key to these countries.
Few Puerto Ricans expect the Trump administration to help the island as it did hurricane-hit Texas and Florida, yet the island’s recent bankruptcy has left it facing a humanitarian disaster.
Reuters/Ricardo Rojas
Hurricane Maria has left 3.4 million Puerto Ricans facing shortages of food, health care and transit, an American humanitarian crisis fueled by the US territory’s May 2017 bankruptcy.
Levi Gahman, The University of the West Indies: St. Augustine Campus and Gabrielle Thongs, The University of the West Indies: St. Augustine Campus
The Caribbean is facing its second deadly hurricane in as many weeks. This isn’t just bad luck: the region’s extreme vulnerability to disaster also reflects entrenched social inequalities.