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Lightning bolt above a city at night.

The Human Nature of Disaster

A storm is never just wind or rain. Our natural problems are social problems. The solutions to them must be social, too.
by Maia Silber via Public Books on March 26, 2021

How Is a Disaster Made?

Studying Hurricane Katrina as a discrete event is studying a fiction.
by Andy Horowitz via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 7, 2020
A street of brick storefronts in Cumberland, Kentucky.

Appalachian Hillsides as Black Ecologies: Housing, Memory, and The Sanctified Hill Disaster of 1972

A landslide that exposed racial inequalities embedded in Appalachian communities.
by Jillean McCommons via Black Perspectives on June 16, 2020
The cover of Cynthia A. Kierner's "Inventing Disaster," which depicts a shipwreck during a storm.

On Inventing Disaster

The culture of calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood.
by Cynthia Kierner, Anna Faison via UNC Press Blog on November 20, 2019
Freedom Hill historic marker half underwater in a flood.

The Water Next Time?

For generations, a North Carolina town founded by former slaves has been disproportionately affected by environmental calamity.
by Danielle Purifoy via Scalawag on October 10, 2018

Laura Ingalls Wilder and One of the Greatest Natural Disasters in American History

When a trillion locusts ate everything in sight.
by Caroline Fraser via Literary Hub on December 5, 2017

Hurricanes Drive Immigration to the US

Why hurricane refugees are more likely to come from some countries than others.
by Dean Yang, Parag Mahajan via The Conversation on September 15, 2017

How Texas Rebuilt After the Deadliest Hurricane in U.S. History

The 12-year process of creating a "new normal" in Galveston.
by Olivia B. Waxman via Time on August 29, 2017

The True Story of History's Only Known Meteorite Victim

Ann Hodges was hit by a meteorite in her Alabama home in 1954.
by Justin Nobel via National Geographic on February 20, 2013
Residents seek higher ground on the roof of a home as floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina cover the streets on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 in New Orleans

How Hurricane Katrina Changed Disaster Preparedness

Hurricane Katrina exposed deep inequities in federal disaster response. "We never felt so cut off in all our lives."
by Yasmin Garaad via Scalawag on November 16, 2023
A drawing of Corcoran State Prison with water approaching. The top of the image reads "In Harm's Way".

In California, Climate Chaos Looms Over Prisons — and Thousands of Prisoners

How decades-old decisions to build two California prisons in a dry lakebed and a chaotic climate left 8,000 incarcerated people at risk.
by Susie Cagle via The Marshall Project on October 24, 2023
Engraving of people fleeing the Peshtigo fire.

In Maui, Echoes of the Deadliest U.S. Wildfire: The 1871 Peshtigo Blaze

The Peshtigo fire ran through 17 towns and killed more than 1,000. It was worsened by a dry season and extreme winds — not dissimilar to what happened in Maui.
by Kelsey Ables via Retropolis on August 16, 2023
Photograph, “The Burning City of San Francisco."

Eyewitness Accounts of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

The heart of this book is the sharp and disjointed accounts of survivors, their experience not yet shorn of its surprise.
by Sasha Archibald via The Public Domain Review on May 23, 2023
Dark painting of a storm

Reading the Horizon

Predicting a hurricane in nineteenth-century South Carolina.
by Caroline Grego via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 30, 2022
Destruction in Fort Myers Beach after Hurricane Ian.
partner

Hurricanes Have Hampered Racial Justice Activism in the Past

Just before a lynch mob was to face trial in Florida in 1926, a storm hit.
by Brandon T. Jett via Made by History on October 19, 2022
Photograph of an African American woman standing on her front porch.

America’s Oldest Black Town Is Trapped Between Rebuilding and Retreating

In Princeville, what’s at stake is not just one town’s survival but a unique window into American history.
by Jake Bittle via Gizmodo on September 21, 2022
Photos of various instances of climate change's effects such as wildfires and hurricanes.

Climate Change Is Destroying American History

As climate change increases the severity of extreme weather events, the nation’s legacy is at risk.
by John Garrison Marks via Time on August 25, 2022
Rescue workers look through the roof of a submerged Rapid City house for flood victims on June 12, 1972.
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A Largely Forgotten Flood Ignited The Environmental Justice Movement

The Rapid City flood helped define pervasive environmental injustice and catalyze action.
by Stephen R. Hausmann via Made by History on June 9, 2022
Vintage drawing of a rural area with snowfall. In the foreground, two horses are pulling a man in a cart on the snowy road.

Cox’s Snow and the Persistence of Weather Memory

One of the worst snowstorms recorded in Virginia’s history began on Sunday, January 17, 1857. It remained in Virginians' collective memories eighty years later.
by Patricia Miller via Encyclopedia Virginia on January 5, 2022
Photograph of an American Northwest forest.

The Long-Lost Tale of an 18th-Century Tsunami, as Told by Trees

Local evidence of the cataclysm has literally washed away over the years. But Oregon’s Douglas firs may have recorded clues deep in their tree rings.
by Max G. Levy via Wired on September 23, 2021
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Exhibit

“Natural” Disasters

Experiences of trauma and resilience, policies of prevention and response: Americans' ways of dealing with meteorological calamity.

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