Houston Looks for a Smarter, More Equitable Path to Hurricane Recovery

Following a devastating hurricane in the early 1960s, Cuba created a model disaster preparedness infrastructure that includes excellent forecasting, education in schools and promoting a culture of nationwide training where everyone has a role to play. The country also focuses on caring for the most vulnerable in disasters and there have been far fewer deaths in many storms compared to other countries. But the size of Hurricane Irma has challenged Cuba's ability to deal with larger, faster storms.

Bringing data analysis technology into post-disaster scenarios can improve methods of allocating funding for disaster relief and reconstruction projects. The UN and Microsoft have partnered to develop the Building Damage Assessment app. Teams on the ground can use the software package to collect and analyze data, which can then be easily disseminated and shared with policymakers.

Young Power in Social Action helps families displaced by extreme weather, like hurricanes, by building weather-proof homes and helping those who lost their jobs find new work by providing them with goats or sewing machines to help them create a new livelihood. The group has already helped rehome eight families and plans to rehouse eight more families by April 2024.

Neighbors around the country are forming grassroots community groups to prepare for, and respond to, extreme weather and disasters. These groups organize aid and supplies, participate in reconstruction, and help others find shelter amidst the storms.

According to the 2021 Global Climate Risk Index Mozambique was the fifth country most affected by extreme weather over the past two decades. This article takes an in-depth analysis into four aspects of the country's climate crisis response; early warning systems, flood defense, resettlement sites, and rebuilding houses. The article evaluates both its failures and successes.

Mobilized to help North Carolina’s second-poorest county recover from two major hurricanes over the past four years, the Robeson County Disaster Recovery Coalition pivoted to provide COVID-19 relief and brace for the possibility of a hurricane during the pandemic. The coalition and other small nonprofits have filled gaps left by state-run relief efforts that either wasted federal aid or failed to take advantage of available aid. During the pandemic, the groups have distributed personal protective equipment and educated a region hard-hit by both kinds of natural disaster.

Identifying the metagenomic sequencing for new outbreaks of viruses can help to better assess how the virus is spreading, which in turn helps health officials figure out how to slow down the contagion. In the midst of a coronavirus outbreak, a tool that was first used to during the SARS outbreak is now being used to track Covid-19 in under-resourced places such as Cambodia.

The same technology that helps companies like Uber find their customers is now available to public safety agencies to ensure accurate location detection from cell phone calls. Denver is among the first cities to implement the updated technology and since the city launched it in mid-2018, it has delivered an accuracy percentage in the 90s, which means first responders don't waste precious time trying to find someone in crisis. The key is for cell phone users to have updated operating systems.

The 2017 hurricane season resulted in damage to the Caribbean. YachtAid and Superyacht Aid Coalition are comprised of people who volunteer their yachts to bring supplies and aid to these damaged regions.

One group of women roams shelters searching for Puerto Rican vets after Hurricane Maria, where there are “around 75,000 US Army veterans living.” “This is Americans helping Americans. These veterans were stationed in the US, went to war with the US. I think that’s the thing that people forget.”