A tiny, vibrant world thrives along the rocky bottom of most streams. As sunlight filters through the water, mayfly nymphs, no larger than your fingernail, cling to algae-coated cobbles. Their brushlike mouthparts scrape the greenish coating, leaving faint trails as they feed. Six spindly legs anchor them against the current, while feathery gills wave gently, […]
Record-breaking sea temperatures across the Gulf of Mexico have been a key ingredient behind some of the intense hurricanes devastating the region this year. In September, Hurricane Helene made landfall on Florida’s “Big Bend” and then stalled over several states to the north dumping “enormous rainfall totals”, resulting in epic flooding which killed at least 220 people. […]
Most Americans will remember 2020 as the year when the pandemic changed everything. But for Lake Charles, Louisiana, and its neighbors along the Gulf Coast, it was also the year of record-setting disasters, when “once-in-a-lifetime” storms hit in such rapid succession that their impacts blurred together. A recent National Academies consensus study I worked on […]
Hundreds of industrial facilities with toxic pollutants were in Hurricane Milton’s path as it passed over Central Florida, less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded communities across the Southeast. By James R. Elliott, Rice University; Dominic Boyer, Rice University, and Phylicia Lee Brown, Rice University The Conversation Milton targeted boat and spa factories along […]
Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified into a dangerous Category 5 hurricane on Oct. 7, 2024, as it headed across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida. Twenty-four hours earlier, it was barely a Category 1 storm. As its wind speed increased, Milton became one of the most rapidly intensifying storms on record. And with 180 mph sustained winds […]
On Feb. 3, 2023, a train carrying chemicals jumped the tracks in East Palestine, Ohio, rupturing railcars filled with hazardous materials and fueling chemical fires at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The disaster drew global attention as the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania urged evacuations for a mile around the site. Flames and smoke […]
Hurricane Helene’s flooding has subsided, but health risks are growing in hard-hit regions of the North Carolina mountains, where many people lost access to power and clean water. Jennifer Horney, University of Delaware The Conversation More than 200 deaths across the Southeast had been attributed to Hurricane Helene within days of the late September 2024 […]
Hurricane Helene caused deadly and destructive flooding when it swept through the Southeast on Sept. 26-29, 2024. Across a broad swath of western North Carolina, where the worst flooding occurred, the amount of rainfall exceeded levels that would be expected on average only once every 1,000 years. Russ Schumacher, Colorado State University and Kathie Dello, […]
Hundreds of industrial facilities with toxic pollutants were in Hurricane Helene’s path as the powerful storm flooded communities across the Southeast in late September 2024. Near the coast and into Georgia, Helene swept over paper mills, fertilizer factories and oil and gas storage facilities. James R. Elliott, Rice University; Dominic Boyer, Rice University, and Phylicia […]
Hurricane Helene cut power to more than 4 million homes and businesses as it moved across the Southeast after hitting Florida’s Big Bend region as a powerful Category 4 storm on Sept. 26, 2024. As Helene’s rains moved into the mountains, causing devastating flooding, officials warned that fixing downed utility lines and restoring power would […]
The French Broad River winds through the mountains of western North Carolina, fed by dozens of mountain streams, and crosses the city of Asheville. At over 2,000 feet above sea level and more than 250 miles from the coast, it is an unlikely place to prepare for a hurricane. Yet, the remnants of several hurricanes have […]
In its recent opening weekend, Twisters marked the biggest start ever for a natural disaster movie with US$80.5 million in North American box office revenue. The popularity of the film indicates disaster movies remain an important popular culture phenomenon. By Jack L. Rozdilsky, York University, Canada The Conversation As an associate professor of disaster and […]
Less than a month into summer 2024, the vast majority of the U.S. population has already experienced an extreme heat wave. Millions of people were under heat warnings across the western U.S. in early July or sweating through humid heat in the East. Mathew Barlow, UMass Lowell and Jeffrey Basara, UMass Lowell The Conversation Death […]
Hurricane Beryl was the latest Atlantic storm to rapidly intensify, growing quickly from a tropical storm into the strongest June hurricane on record in the Atlantic. It hit the Grenadine Islands with 150 mph winds and a destructive storm surge on July 1, 2024, then continued to intensify into the basin’s earliest Category 5 storm […]
A multistate coalition of environmental, labor and health groups urged the Federal Emergency Management Agency today to unlock crucial disaster relief funding for extreme heat and wildfire smoke, both of which are not recognized by FEMA as major disasters. By Center for Biological Diversity “It’s urgent that FEMA treats intensifying heat waves and wildfire smoke as the […]