Disaster Recovery

These Black Architects Are Helping Rebuild Altadena After The LA Wildfires

April 24, 2025 Corinne Ruff, Next City. Create! Architecture, Black America, California, Community, Disaster Recovery, Los Angeles, Wildfires

Carla Flagg remembers the joy of growing up in west Altadena. “We had these great pool parties where all the cousins and everybody would come to the Fair Oaks house,” she says, smiling, as tears welled up in her eyes. Her parents owned the house and passed it down to her sister and her sister’s kids. “ We had that home for 50-some odd years, and there are still people who know the original phone number.” Flagg’s family home was one of some 9,400 structures that were destroyed in the Eaton Fire in January. It was also one of many homes passed down within the Black community by family members. Discriminatory redlining of the 1960s steered her parents away from Pasadena, and realtors encouraged them to purchase on the west side of Altadena.

How Appalachian Towns Are Learning To Help Each Other After Floods

March 15, 2025 Katie Myers, Next City. Create! Appalachia, climate crisis, Disaster Recovery, Flooding, Kentucky

When the rivers and creeks running through eastern Kentucky jumped their banks and flooded a wide swath of the region for the second time in as many years, Cara Ellis set to work. One week later, she’s hardly let up. Ellis has spent countless hours helping friends in her hometown of Pikeville evacuate and delivering supplies to people who have lost their homes. “I’ve been here, there, everywhere in the county,” she said. “It’s overwhelming. There’s been a lot of devastation.” Ellis spoke during a brief moment of rest in the chaos. Her home was spared when storms brought torrential rain to central Appalachia during the weekend of February 15.

Don’t Let Insurance Companies Fleece Homeowners

March 4, 2025 Kelsey Condon, Counter Punch. Strategize! Disaster Recovery, Extreme weather, Housing, Insurance Companies

As climate-fueled disasters escalate, insurers are getting richer while leaving Americans in the lurch. Citing climate-related losses, many insurance companies are exorbitantly inflating rates, refusing to renew policies, and delaying, denying, or underpaying claims. The latest of many examples is Los Angeles, where wildfires devoured over 40,000 acres and left thousands unhoused and unemployed. Many families were dropped by their insurers or struggled to find affordable options before the fires. Some turned to the state’s coverage plan, which costs more and covers less.

Public Banking In A Time Of Climate Crisis

February 15, 2025 Trinity Tran, Consortium News. Create! climate crisis, Disaster Recovery, Public Banks, Wildfires

On the night of Jan. 7, as the Palisades Fire surged to 2,000 acres to the west and the Eaton Fire exploded to 1,000 to the east, I joined thousands fleeing hurricane-force winds that hurled embers for miles. I evacuated out of precaution, but across Los Angeles, many Angelenos were not as fortunate. Like so many here, I spent those first sleepless nights glued to wall-to-wall news coverage, tracking the fires’ paths. But while flames dominated headlines, a slower crisis burns, one that Los Angeles has yet to confront. Caught in a cycle of destruction and recovery that grows more urgent every year, fire season is no longer a season — it’s a year-round threat.

Fast Fashion Is Haunting L.A.’s Wildfire Relief Efforts

February 1, 2025 Maylin Tu, Next City. Educate! California, Disaster Recovery, Fashion Industry, Los Angeles, Recycling, Wildfires

The Sunday after the wildfires hit L.A. County, I found myself sorting through piles of clothing with other volunteers outside of L.A. Climate Week’s host, the nonprofit Collidescope Foundation. Even as we packed dozens of 13-gallon trash bags with items sorted by gender, age and type, mountains of more donations were stacked floor to ceiling inside. In a crisis, Los Angeles residents like Halle Berry packed up their dresses, sweaters, jeans, jackets and more for wildfire victims. It’s a heartwarming gesture, but donation hubs ended up with more used clothing than they could realistically pass on to wildfire survivors.

How Federal Disaster Funding Can Slow Rent Increases

January 20, 2025 Robert Davis, Next City. Educate! Affordable Housing, Disaster Recovery, Extreme weather, Flooding, Housing, Housing Crisis, Rent, Wildfires

Coloradans often welcome rain storms with the refrain, “We need the moisture.” After the deadly floods in September 2013, many Coloradans sang a different tune. Over five days, a slow-moving storm covered some areas of the Front Range with up to 20 inches of rain. Overall, the floods killed 10 people, displaced 18,000, and caused more than $4 billion in damage to more than 17,000 structures, of which 1,882 were completely destroyed, according to the Colorado Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Management’s after-action report.

Resilience And Regeneration, Disaster After Disaster

October 22, 2024 Oscar Perry Abello, Next City. Create! climate crisis, Disaster Recovery, Extreme weather, Hurricanes, Resilience

Long before the winds and the rain and the flooding, there was already so much healing work that needed doing, and some of it was already happening. That’s not really in question. Like the fungi beneath our feet, the work of regenerating, reconstituting and rebuilding never really stops, even in the aftermath of a hurricane or other disaster. But with every tragic deluge, the open wounds of carnage and destruction also open up new lines of sight for others to see who has been doing that work in their community — and then to either join them or bulldoze right over them.

Disaster Relief Often Leaves Disabled People Behind

September 7, 2023 Bianca Gonzalez, Next City. Create! climate crisis, Disability Rights, Disaster Recovery, Extreme weather

When disaster strikes, disabled people and low-income communities are hit the hardest and face higher mortality rates. They also take longer to recover. Germán Parodi and Shaylin Sluzalis were protesting in Washington, D.C., for disability rights as they found out Hurricane Maria was on its way to Puerto Rico in 2017. Now the co-directors of The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies, they were deployed as part of a disabled first responder team. Parodi, who was born and raised on the island, lives with a mobility disability, while Sluzalis lives with an invisible disability. “Being culturally aware of the dynamics of the island … and knowing how to interact with people with different types of disabilities opened doors that we were being told wouldn’t open in some neighborhoods,” says Parodi.