All posts tagged "Natural Disasters"

A special forces soldier turned motivational speaker who led a civilian disaster response to Hurricane Helene last fall, generating an Army investigation into whether he was leading an armed militia group, is running for Congress in North Carolina.

In the final stretch of the 2024 presidential campaign, Adam R. Smith’s Savage Freedoms Relief Operations won praise from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, as he sought to discredit federal disaster response efforts under then-President Joe Biden.

But as reported by Raw Story, Smith’s effort, part of a surge of armed civilians, many with military experience, also contributed intentionally or not to a climate of intimidation that led to the evacuation of a state medical assistance team including contract workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the investigation by U.S. Army Special Operations Command....

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here.

No matter where you live, extreme weather can hit your area, causing damage to homes, power outages, and dangerous or deadly conditions. If you’re on the coast, it may be a hurricane; in the Midwest or South, a tornado; in the West, wildfires; and as we’ve seen in recent years, anywhere can experience heat waves or flash flooding.

Living through a disaster and its aftermath can be both traumatic and chaotic, from the immediate losses of life and belongings to conflicting information around where to access aid. The weeks and months after may be even more difficult, as the attention on your community is gone but civic services and events have stalled or changed drastically. ...

This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat. You can sign up for Civil Beat's newsletter here and support the nonprofit newsroom here.

One year after deadly wildfires upended life on Maui, several thousand people gathered across the island Thursday to grieve the lives that were lost, reflect on all they’ve endured and affirm their resolve to keep their communities intact as the difficult work to rebuild continues.

At Hanakao’o Park in West Maui, chants of “Lahaina strong!” echoed across the water as hundreds of those residents paddled out on surfboards just offshore from the beach park. They cheered and splashed as crews aboard the Hawaiian voyaging canoes Hokule’a and Mo’okiha O Pi’ilani looked on in support.

Thousands of flower petals rained down on the paddlers from a helicopter overhead....

An Oklahoma company has developed a blanket to help protect children during school shootings.

By Anders Sandberg, University of Oxford