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Changing climate dynamics have resulted in a confluence of disaster events to which Louisiana government leaders and emergency managers have never before had to respond simultaneously: a global pandemic and an “epidemic” of landfalling hurricanes during the 2020 season (eight cones over Louisiana) with challenging, unusual characteristics: (1) two hurricanes passing over the same location within 36 hours, a fujiwhara – Hurricanes Marco and Laura, (2) 150 mile-per-hour winds inadequately forecasted and of an almost unprecedented speed, (3) a difficult to forecast surge magnitude that led to incorrect immediate response, (4) delayed long-term recovery efforts from responders outside of the area because of initial reporting errors regarding surge heights and wind speed, and (5) a storm, Zeta, that passed directly over a densely populated area that would have been hard hit by rain if the storm had slowed. In addition, the number and closeness in dates of storm occurrences led to lengthy coastal high-water levels. To these co-occurring threats forecasters, state and local officials and residents responded with expertise and commitment, adhering to close collaboration, modifying evacuations and undertaking protective measures, all contributing to a low death rate from storms and a modest death rate from COVID. More just outcomes were supported by the general capacity of the responders, commitment to keep the residents informed about both risks and appropriate responses to them and the provision of special services, calculated for the new situation of the pandemic and the storm epidemic, for those without the means to respond adequately to both.

Purpose — A new method of collecting hurricane evacuation data using time-dependent stated choice is developed and evaluated in this study.

Methodology/approach — Hypothetical storms are presented in a video in a sequence of scenarios showing prevailing conditions at discrete points in time as each storm approaches land. Respondents are exposed to nine hypothetical storms representing a range of hurricane characteristics. One of the hypothetical storms is secretly the same as an actual storm the respondents experienced in the past and for which they are required to report their behaviour in a revealed preference survey.

Findings — Stated and actual behaviour was compared and general agreement was found between what people say they would do and what they did. The revealed preference (RP) data was supplemented with time-dependent data from official sources and hurricane evacuation demand models estimated on this enhanced RP data, as well as on a combination of the enhanced RP and time-dependent stated choice (SC) data. When the models were applied to a different data set than the ones on which the models were calibrated, the combined time-dependent RP/SC model performed slightly better than the enhanced RP model. Detailed accounting revealed that time-dependent SC data is 25 percent more expensive to collect than enhanced RP data, although some of this cost may be due to the first-time collection of this type of data.

On September 9, 2018, Hurricane Irma swept across south Florida, leaving a path of destruction across the entire state. Miami-Dade County, at the southern tip of the state, avoided a direct hit. However, the storm left the county and its dozens of municipalities with gigantic mounds of storm debris. As the weeks went by, the piles festered and frustration with the pace of the clean-up mounted. Two dump sites in particular drew the attention of media and community activists: a park ringed by single family homes in Liberty City, a black community in the heart of Miami; and historic Virginia Key, the only beach open to black citizens under Jim Crow segregation. This research examines three narratives -- media coverage, official explanations from local governments, and reactions on social media -- as a way to investigate how the dumping of storm debris in black spaces was justified, interrogated, and contested in the aftermath of one of the worst hurricanes to strike Miami-Dade County in over a decade. Climate change models predict the increasing frequency of super storms like Irma, and discussions of how coastal cities respond in terms of infrastructure and resiliency are growing. This investigation looks at two components of this response that have not been as widely considered: what are the institutional and citizen responses in the aftermath of these storms, and how will issues of race and historic geographic marginalization be either acknowledged or ignored as the problems associated with climate change grow ever more acute and pressing.

This chapter chronicles some of the early years of the author growing up in the racially segregated South Alabama and its influence on his thinking about race, environment, social equity, and government responsibility and his journey to becoming an environmental sociologist, scholar, and activist. Using an environmental justice paradigm, he uncovers the underlying assumptions that contribute to and produce unequal protection. The environmental justice paradigm provides a useful framework for examining and explaining the spatial relation between the health of marginalized populations and their built and natural environment, and government response to natural and man-made disasters in African American communities. Clearly, people of color communities have borne a disproportionate burden and have received differential treatment from government in its response to health threats such as childhood lead poisoning, toxic waste and contamination, industrial accidents, hurricanes, floods and related weather-related disasters, and a host of other man-made disasters. The chapter brings to the surface the ethical and political questions of “who gets what, why, and how much” and why some communities get left behind before and after disasters strike.

This paper addresses how local retailers remain resilient in negotiating the lead up to and immediate aftermath of two major disasters (Typhoons Nesat and Nalgae) within a developing urban context (Dagupan City, Pangasinan). It highlights the specific mechanisms by which urban traders engage the Philippines’ more pervasive and highly resilient “culture of disaster” vis-à-vis conditions of chronic natural hazard.

This study relies predominately on the traditional anthropological techniques of participant observation and informal/semi-structured interviews to gather relevant project data. Supplementing these two core methods are findings derived from secondary sources like local and provincial newspapers, government records, public and university libraries, and census findings.

Findings suggest that a continual cycle of disaster impact and response does not overtly affect small retailers’ entrepreneurial initiative. It becomes clear that a persistent threat of natural hazards fosters a rather fatalistic sense of self-reliance.

Study was designed and funded as a quick-response study; therefore, the research timeframe was rather compressed and the informant pool somewhat limited.

The Philippines is widely recognized as a “culture of disaster” given its volatile position along the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire” and “Typhoon Alley.” This distinction assumes added dimension as the effects of global climate change become increasingly pervasive at the local level.

This paper adds ethnographic detail to a growing body of data on small business resilience within disaster prone areas of the Global South amid intensifying global climate change.

A great deal of uncertainty accompanies predictions of the potential effects of global climate change on the coastal hazards associated with severe storms. One way to obviate the effects of this uncertainty on the design of policies is to understand the manner in which populations are currently vulnerable to these types of hazards. In this chapter, we develop a method for constructing a relative composite measure of vulnerability using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Through the application of this index, and one constructed using a weighted average, to four costal towns along Boston's North Shore, we demonstrate their potential usefulness to policy formulation and implementation. The DEA composite index is shown to complement the information provided by the weighted average and helps overcome some of its shortcomings such as assigning importance weights and masking of the influence of one or a subset of vulnerability attributes. Acknowledging the spatial implications of floodplain protection and mitigation efforts, the indices are constructed and analyzed at a number of different geographic scales.

The Best Management Practices for Sustainable Urban Drainage System including On-Site Detention have been introduced in the Storm Water Management Manual for Malaysia. Flash floods are becoming frequent in the urbanised areas in this country. Inefficient drainage system has been highlighted as one of the factors. Urban drains were reported incapable of coping with the unexpected heavy rainfall. Concrete drains are favourable in construction industry for economic reasons. An experimental research was conducted out to investigate the effectiveness of infiltration integration with drainage system to reduce flash flood. This laboratory research was conducted in the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Experiments were performed for selected drainage bed slopes and focussed on several spacing between precast drain sections along the system. The total and infiltrated flow rates, water surface and velocity profiles were examined. The results showed that drain flow rates were reduced by 60.9%–89.6% when the spacing between drain sections were enlarged. Meanwhile, the flow depths in drain sections were dropped by 48.2%–68.9%, and the water velocity was lowered up to 49% as the spacing between drain sections were increased. The study found that the drainage bed slope also influenced the performance of the infiltrated concrete drainage system.

This study explores the concept of hydraulic flushing gate with an automated control system as a flow control structure of the urban storm water system. The research team has implemented a flush gate with the automated control system to the flow of the water in a drainage channel. The flow control structure was used to determine the effectiveness of such design by applying the concept of virtually on a real-world drainage system at Jalan Astana, Kuching. Computer representations of the existing drainage system and flow control structure were built using EPA SWMM 5.0 model. The series of flow control structure was proven to hold the runoff from 10-year storm. The modelling result shows that there is 25.9% of flow reduction at outlet node. As a modification of the existing drainage system in the urban area involves high construction cost, by installing a flow control structure in the drainage system is an innovative way to control the flow of the water.

This chapter examines underrepresentation among African American and Hispanic students in gifted education using the perfect storm analogy, arguing that social inequality, elitism, and colorblindness are three forces that contribute to the poor presence of these groups in gifted education. Underrepresentation trends are presented, along with methods for calculating underrepresentation and inequity. Underrepresentation is placed under the larger issues of achievement gaps, and inequitable school practices, specifically de jure segregation. Models and discussions of social inequality, elitism, and colorblindness are presented to explain that the magnitude of underrepresentation is beyond statistical chance and a function of decision makers’ attitudes and beliefs grounded in deficit paradigms. The primary theses and admonitions are that gifted education underrepresentation is counterproductive in such a culturally different nation, and that desegregating gifted education is nonnegotiable. Suggestions for desegregating gifted education and eliminating inequities are provided.

Community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) has been recognized since the mid-1990s. However, in the changing environment of the new millennium and the move toward disaster risk reduction (DRR), the community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) has been evolving in recent years. In Vietnam, many projects and programs in CBDRR have been carried out since the year 2000, and these programs tried to increase the resilience of the most vulnerable villages and communes. These projects aim to strengthen the capacity of the communities to become more aware and responsive to their short-and long-term needs through participatory risk assessment and identification, prioritization, and implementation of risk reduction measures.