All the news that's fit to link: 7/9/2020

July 10, 2020

Welcome to the biweekly links edition of My World’s on Fire, highlighting some of the reporting I’m following in this space and offering the occasional deeper-dive into that work. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this new format, and, of course, on the stories below! Hit the button below to comment, or find me on your social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram).

The story I can’t stop thinking about this week:

Andrea González-Ramírez’s investigation on the rise in domestic violence following Hurricane Maria’s devastating impact on Puerto Rico is deeply reported, detailed, and heartbreaking. After I finished reading it – which I recommend you do now – I reached out to Andrea with a few questions to provide some more disaster-specific context.

Colleen: There are many issues we anticipate following a natural disaster, from the immediate need for food and water to the longer-term concerns of rebuilding, but your article touches on one that is quite often overlooked: the rise in domestic violence incidents in the aftermath. Can you explain a bit how Hurricane Maria, as you put it, gave "new urgency" to this pre-existing issue in Puerto Rico?

Andrea: Research linking intimate partner violence to natural disasters in the U.S. has been around for three decades, going as far back as Hurricane Andrew in Florida in 1992.

The most obvious way in which Hurricane Maria’s aftermath gave renewed urgency to the island’s domestic violence crisis was the uptick we saw in terms of lethality. In 2018, the rate of women murdered by their intimate partners in Puerto Rico more than doubled. The storm clearly disrupted all areas of Puerto Ricans’ daily lives, from access to power and clean water to healthcare and employment. But my investigation also found the aftermath made some of the system’s flaws even worse.

It became harder for victims to have access to protective orders, like it happened in the case of Suliani Calderón Nieves, a 38-year-old healthcare worker and mother of two who was killed by her ex husband in May 2018. A judge denied to renew her order in December 2017, three months after the storm. It also became more difficult for survivors to seek help from the police, like it happened in the case of “M,” a 20-something survivor whose ex attempted to rape her the night she ended their relationship in early 2018.

The increase in murders — 23 women were killed by their current or former partners in 2018 — led to activists to ask the governor to declare a national state of emergency. That hasn’t happened yet.

Over the course of your investigation, Puerto Rico has been hit with additional crises, including earthquakes and the coronavirus. How did that impact your reporting?

I had planned to travel home in January to wrap up my reporting, but then a 6.4 earthquake struck the island the day before I was supposed to fly in. That quake and its aftershocks, some which the island felt for weeks, forced me to cancel my trip. I was then able to travel in March, just as we were realizing the scope of coronavirus pandemic. At the time, it was business as usual in Puerto Rico so it was easy for me to move around and meet my sources. We all joked nervously about hugging when saying hi (boricuas are touchy-feely even with strangers).

Hours before my flight to New York, Gov. Wanda Vázquez announced a strict lockdown and curfew. I didn’t have an issue leaving the island, but it quickly became clear we would have to push our publishing date back until things were more under control.

The back-to-back crises also raised an alarm for my sources, who fear the impact of both the earthquakes, which are still happening, and the pandemic — combined with a hurricane season that started June 1 and is predicted to be pretty bad — could lead to another increase in violence and its lethality, as it happened after Maria.

We're seeing more extreme events like Hurricane Maria happening with increasing regularity in recent years. From what you learned, how do you think governments and/or disaster response organizations can become more proactive to address this issue following future disasters?

Shortly after Maria, the Puerto Rican coalition Coordinadora Paz para la Mujer developed an extensive protocol for handling intimate partner violence cases in times of disaster. The government has yet to adopt it.

Some of their suggestions included having the government recognize intimate partner violence as a potential consequence of the disaster, train emergency personnel to identify signs of gender violence, ensure that all emergency shelters are equipped to spot and handle these cases, and better coordination at all levels of government to help victims leave their abusive situations and provide them with the help they need — be it police, courts, or hospitals.

The literature on what protocols to implement has existed out there for a while because we’ve known of this connection between intimate partner violence and natural disasters for nearly 30 years. If governments wanted to address this issue with the seriousness and urgency it deserves, they would reach out to those experts and listen to their advice.

Many thanks to Andrea for her time – you can find more of her reporting on Medium

Other articles I’m reading 📚

  • ‘The people who imagine disasters’ (BBC Future)

  • “FEMA is responsible for flagging high-risk zones where property owners with federally backed mortgages must purchase flood insurance. But FEMA’s maps are notoriously incomplete.” This piece includes a new tool that could help (ProPublica)

  • Phoenix is trying to become “the country’s first heat-ready city” (Washington Post)

  • California relies on inmate fire crews to make it through wildfire season. But the state’s prisons are being hit particularly hard by coronavirus (Sacramento Bee)

  • Speaking of wildfires, one expert warns the US’ “safe” approach in light of coronavirus might actually be the opposite (Slate)

Watching 📺

  • This new YouTube series on “‘hacking the apocalypse” – ie. how tech could maybe possibly help us better avoid or survive disasters (CNET)

And, as always…

here’s a little something for reading to the end.

My World’s on Fire is a free newsletter about disasters from journalist Colleen Hagerty. My goal is to help you feel a little bit more at ease about our unpredictable world by equipping you with in-depth reporting and insights. I can only do that with your continued support, so please subscribe and share!