Oysters are big business along the Gulf Coast, but raising them off-bottom – which yields a premium product – is just starting there. Hurricane Michael showed it won’t be easy.
Flooding due to climate change may make coastal homes less valuable.
AP Photo/Julio Cortez
Convincing people to see and appreciate the threats posed by climate change is one of the great challenges of our day. Insurers may be able to succeed where scientists and educators have failed.
Devastation from Hurricane Michael in Mexico Beach, Florida, Oct. 12, 2018. Residents whose homes have suffered major damage in multiple storms could eventually be offered buyouts, but the process can take several years.
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
Government agencies spend millions of dollars yearly to buy and demolish homes sited in floodplains. But the program is slow, cumbersome and doesn’t always help those who need it most.
Hog farm buildings are inundated with floodwater from Hurricane Florence near Trenton, N.C., in September 2018.
(AP Photo/Steve Helber)
Cheap fossil fuels contort the global economy in ways that have systematically harmed some and benefited others. Justice demands that those of us who have benefited take responsibility.
Would these power lines have weathered the storm if they were underground?
Reuters/Jonathan Bachman
Hurricanes Michael and Florence have knocked power out for millions of people. Burying power lines could help but the costs are high.
Protecting coastal wetlands, like this slough in Florida’s Everglades National Park, is a cost-effective way to reduce flooding and storm damage.
NPS/C. Rivas
Coastal development is destroying marshes, mangroves and other wetlands that provide valuable protection from hurricanes and storms. Research shows these benefits can be worth millions of dollars.
A street sign sticks up from floodwaters after Hurricane Florence in Nichols, South Carolina, September 21, 2018.
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
Hurricanes frequently move inland in the southeast US, causing widespread river flooding, but emergency plans focus on protecting people in coastal communities.
A man tries to get his dog out of a flooded neighbourhood in Lumberton, N.C., in September 2018 in the aftermath of hurricane Florence. Many people opted to ignore evacuation warnings, suggesting a distrust of authorities.
(AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
A peaceful society requires us to trust our public institutions, but in order to do so, we must question them. Questions are a healthy and necessary response to a world filled with uncertainty.
A sign posted in New Bern, North Carolina after Hurricane Florence.
AP Photo/Gary D Robertson
Donations to relief efforts tend to dry up within a few months.
Children are among the most vulnerable victims of any natural disaster. Some 645,000 young Puerto Ricans experienced the trauma of Hurricane Maria.
Reuters/Alvin Baez
Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, forever changing the lives of the children who survived. Their stories can help Puerto Rico identify and aid the kids most traumatized by Hurricane Maria.
Environmental regulations generally improve communities’ preparedness and resilience during disasters.
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
The damage to coal ash sites from Hurricane Florence demonstrates how a community’s vulnerability to natural disasters is closely linked to how stringent environmental regulations are.
AI can definitely help us monitor floods and could perhaps even deliver more accurate early-warning messages in the near future.
President Donald Trump tosses paper towels into a crowd at Calvary Chapel in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico in October 2017 following Hurricane Maria. Trump congratulated Puerto Rico for escaping the higher death toll of “a real catastrophe like Katrina.” A new study suggests almost 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
As Trump fumes about the Hurricane Maria death toll, it’s clear that politics and political considerations often play an important role in how death toll estimates are communicated to the public.
Storms Florence, Isaac and Helene on September 9.
EPA / NASA
Widespread flooding in North Carolina from Hurricane Florence shows the need for better advance planning in inland areas of the south and mid-Atlantic, especially near rivers.
Cumberland Island National Seashore off the coast of Georgia.
NPS
How do the narrow ribbons of sand that line the Atlantic and Gulf coasts withstand the force of hurricanes? The answer lies in their shape-shifting abilities.
Florida’s Turkey Point Nuclear Plant shut down 12 hours before Hurricane Andrew made landfall in 1992.
AP Photo/Phil Sandlin