I've come to talk with you again

By Colleen Hagerty 

Welcome to My World’s on Fire, a newsletter about disasters from journalist Colleen Hagerty. If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, let’s make this a regular thing—subscribe for free to receive disaster deep-dives, Q&As, and context in your inbox on Thursday evenings.

In this week's edition: updates on some of the most popular MWOF editions of 2022 and a year-end membership special.

One of my favorite things to do in this newsletter is revisit voices and communities I've introduced in previous editions. It’s something I’ve always felt was lacking from much of the news coverage out there—I’d read a deeply-reported feature about a person after a disaster and wonder how they were doing now, a question that was rarely answered. And as a journalist, I always felt uncomfortable with dropping into someone’s life in this way, particularly since our interactions were often taking place during one of the most difficult times of their lives.I think coming back to these people and communities is key to creating journalism that actually informs the public about the human impacts of disasters, so when sources are open to it, I usually try to keep in touch. But it’s difficult to find outlets that will publish those ongoing dispatches, which is why I’m so grateful to have this space. In today’s newsletter, I’ll be sharing updates about five popular newsletters from 2022. And don’t worry if you're a new subscriber—there are links back to the original editions, so you can catch up with any reads you might have missed!

Stuck in the middle with you 

Originally published January 13The first MWOF edition of 2022 brought us to Paradise, California with Jess Mercer, the founder of Butte County Art on Wheels. Mercer launched the mobile art courses in the wake of the 2018 Camp Fire to provide young survivors with a trauma-informed outlet. The popularity of that program made her in demand throughout the community, and she’s gone on to work with a number of different schools and organizations. In February, I met with Mercer at Paradise High School in a new wellness center she helped establish as I reported this article for Teen Vogue; in an email earlier this month, she told me she’s remained a “busy bee” in months since. She’s now a trauma specialist for a local continuation high school and redesigned an after school program for local middle schoolers. Mercer has also started working with other wildfire-impacted school districts, including Santa Rosa. But she was most excited to share a new initiative she launched for the entire Paradise community. “I converted an old thrift store in Paradise to have a full gym, game room, living room, and community kitchen,” Mercer said. “I raised $250,000 in six months and built it in 87 days. Now we have gatherings, a place for kids and families to share space, and a space [where] we can provide all kinds of programming for healing or skill-based learning.”You can see a few images of the new community center, all courtesy of Jess Mercer, below.

Who gets to make decisions

Originally published February 2This Q&A with crisis & disaster practitioner Susamma Seeley dug into some of the entrenched issues of bias and discrimination in the emergency management field, subjects Seeley says she has continued to speak about in new forums throughout this year. She is now teaching undergraduate leadership courses with an inclusion and justice framework and recently participated in York University’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion in Disaster & Emergency Management speaker series.

“The topic of justice and inclusion is not always well received since I am really telling folks to move beyond their traditional ideas of diversity, equity, and inclusion where Black, Indigenous, and People of Color folks are expected to shoulder the burden of ignoring stereotypes, microaggressions, and other harms on a daily basis," Seeley said to me in a recent email. "In my sessions, all folks are asked to take ownership of their ignorance and bias."

Seeley is also continuing work on her dissertation “on bureaucratic discretion and how state-level actors/bureaucrats/emergency managers understand and connect their power/agency decision-making to implementing disaster recovery programs in their states.”

As long as there are stories

Originally published March 17After featuring the Dixie Fire Stories Project in March, I had the opportunity to meet with photographer Joanne Burgueño, who takes the Humans of New York-style images of Dixie Fire survivors. Some of the photos she snapped for the project were being shown in the Plumas Arts gallery in Quincy, California, an area just outside of the fire's burn scar, and we met there so that I could see her work in person. At first, Burgueño walked me through some of the photos on the walls, sharing her memories of photographing the subjects or pointing out particular captions, but the two of us soon fell silent, both taking it in. It wasn’t her first time seeing her work on display, but Burgueño was visibly emotional when I turned back to her. The first anniversary of the Dixie Fire had just passed, and it was the sort of uncomfortably hot late-summer day locals in the area told me they had come to dread. The memory of the fire was close to the surface for many that week, and for Burgueño, her memories now included the experiences of numerous residents she’d spoken to throughout the year.

The Dixie Fire Stories Project is ongoing, and recently published a milestone post, highlighting the first business to reopen in Greenville since the majority of the town was lost in the 2021 fire.

One of the Dixie Fire Stories Project displays at Plumas Arts

In the know

Originally published August 4When I spoke with Allison Slone this summer about the historic flooding and landslides in Kentucky, she was adamant that the communities impacted would not be forgotten, particularly as their stories started falling out of the headlines. Slone was leading a fundraiser through Kentucky Teachers in the Know, or KTITK, a Facebook group for educators in the state, with a focus on helping fellow teachers through that long haul of the recovery process.

“In a few months, when they get those schools back on their feet and get started, whether they can clean it or they have to rebuild and start over, they will definitely need it,” she said at the time. Earlier this week, Slone updated me on those efforts, sharing that 29 educators or school employees were “adopted” by group members who pledged to donate at least $100. KTITK also worked with the Kentucky Education Association to organize a GoFundMe, which supported five family resource centers in flood-damaged areas, and collected items for districts in need of supplies.

The space between

Originally published September 29 

In the fall, I wrote about the flooding and destruction Typhoon Merbok caused in Newtok, Alaska, an Indigenous community that has been in the process of moving away from its eroding coast for decades. A few weeks later, the Biden administration announced Newtok would receive $25 million to put towards that relocation effort through the Department of the Interior, with additional funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The press release said this community will serve as a “demonstration project” for “future climate resilience efforts by providing early learning opportunities for best practices, developing standard guidelines and tools to serve as a blueprint for future efforts, and demonstrating the success of a consolidated and coordinated interagency approach to relocation and managed retreat.”But, as journalist Madeline Ostrander notes in The Nation, the example set so far is that the federal government waited for a disaster to send additional assistance to Newtok, despite residents pushing for funds to preventatively move for years. For more on this funding, which is also being allocated to a number of other Native communities looking to relocate, and how it fits into the longer story of Newtok, I highly recommend checking out that article from Ostrander. I linked to more of her reporting in the original edition, and she also wrote about Newtok in her book, At Home on an Unruly Planet (which I also recommend)!

This is the last regular edition I’ll be sending out to all free subscribers for 2022. Members will receive an email during this break, so if you want more MWOF, it's not too late to sign up (keep reading for a special deal)!You can also join the MWOF book club for free on Threadable to stay in touch over the next few weeks—we're currently reading a chapter from Critical Disaster Studies, which you might remember from this newsletter edition last year.

A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to read My World's on Fire throughout the year—I truly hope it’s helped enhance your understanding of disasters, broaden your perspective, and give you some practical insight into what can be a daunting subject. I know there’s a never-ending stream of emails and content fighting for your attention, and I am so appreciative that you’ve chosen to carve time out to spend with me and the communities covered in this edition and beyond.

This newsletter is heading into its third year thanks to the support of regular readers like you! If you appreciate seeing these emails pop up in your inbox, here are a few ways to keep them coming:

• Become a My World's on Fire member: As a year-end special, you can choose your own rate for monthly donations through the end of 2022. That means you can become a member for just $1/month, which is less than pretty much anything you would want to buy! You can also become a yearly member starting at just $50. Membership gives you access to extra emails and opportunities to shape what you read in My World's on Fire. Plus, it keeps the newsletter free for a broader audience, which is an essential part of my mission.

• Make a one-time donation: Don't want to make a commitment? No problem! A cup of coffee is always appreciated.

• Spread the word: Your recommendations are the best way for new subscribers to find My World's on Fire, so I really appreciate when you take the time to forward this email or share a link on your social platform of choice. And if you tag me, you'll get a shoutout in a future edition!

This week’s subscriber shout-out goes to Alina—thank you for spreading the word about My World's on Fire:

Now, here’s a

for reading to the end. Happy holidays, and I'll see you in 2023!

Colleen

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