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Putting disasters on the map
Putting disasters on the map
Putting disasters on the map
Welcome to My World’s on Fire, a newsletter about disasters from journalist Colleen Hagerty. 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: a chat with Amy Chester of Rebuild by Design, a book club update, and a year-end special for MWOF membership.
A few weeks ago, I noticed a
sharing the same statistic: that from 2011 to 2021, 90% of counties in the United States experienced a federally-declared extreme weather or climate-related disaster.
It’s a pretty startling statement, so I wanted to dedicate an edition to putting that figure in context, including breaking down the research behind it, understanding what it does and does not account for, and looking at the broader data set it fits within.
So, let’s start with the basics: this finding comes from Atlas of Disaster, a report Rebuild by Design released in November. The New York-based organization has an interesting backstory itself—Rebuild by Design was originally a federal government program launched in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Some of the experts who participated in the initiative ultimately spun it off into an organization of its own, which now aims to “reimagine the way communities find solutions for today’s large-scale, complex problems by creating collaborations across communities and governments,” per the organization’s
.
Part of that work is sharing knowledge about the risks we face, Amy Chester, the organization's managing director, explained to me by phone. The Atlas of Disaster offers an abundance of data, with more than 200 maps providing state-by-state breakdowns of a decade in disasters. It's also accessible to those who might not be familiar with the way the government deals with disasters, with explanations of the federal disaster declaration process and the various federal agencies involved in distributing aid.
At the end, the authors provide detailed recommendations for rethinking the federal disaster response system to better address the needs of communities, particularly as climate change affects the severity and frequency of some hazards. (A quick note that t
he report does use the term “
,” which I’ve previously written about being contentious among experts.)
“Our recommendations center on federal policy and the way in which our government has been administering funding after storms, though communities at that point have already suffered,” Chester said.
Our conversation, included below with edits for length and clarity, digs into the inspiration for the Atlas, how the organization gathered the information used in the report, and some of the other data you can find if you read through it. The entire report is free to read and download, or you can check out summarized sections.
The cover of the Atlas of Disaster from Rebuild by Deisgn
Colleen Hagerty: What inspired your team to create the Atlas of Disaster report?
Amy Chester: This actually started from work that we did in New York state around 2019. We had done a little bit of research that was able to demonstrate quite clearly that every county in New York state had a disaster declaration for flooding—we were only looking for flooding at the time—and 60% of counties had had more than five, and we decided to map it to get an understanding of who was most affected. As soon as we mapped it, it became very clear that this wasn't just a New York City issue, it was upstate and downstate; it was red and blue. It was riverine, it was coastal, it was Great Lakes.
With my background in political strategy, it became very obvious that we could create a very interesting coalition to convince the governor of New York to create resilient infrastructure funding. Fast forward, and we were very successful. In 2020, the governor introduced a bond lock, which is a voter referendum essentially. It started out as $3 billion and then it was taken off the ballot—there was a lot of back and forth, which is probably not that interesting—but in the end, our new governor raised it $1.2 billion, and just this past November, New York voters voted in favor of that
, which will create a big pot of money on the state level.
So, we realized that we had a kind of special sauce for demonstrating that climate change is already here, that communities are already suffering, and you can take responsibility and jump in and do something.
CH: When it came to expanding that research outside of New York state, what was that process like? I know it can be a bit different state by state what sort of information is available, so what sources did you turn to for information?
AC: Well, we originally brought a group of maybe six or eight people together who we trust and very strategically asked them what was going on in different states, what they knew about governors and communities on the ground, and we came up with 11 states that we were going to focus on. We got a grant for 11 states, and then we picked up the partnerships with APTIM, which is a global engineering firm, and iParametrics, which does data, and since they were FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) contractors, they already had the data. What was really, really hard for us to do in New York—and we did it by hand—they were able to provide for us and work with us to map and tell the story we wanted to show.
CH: You offer detailed recommendations in the Atlas of Disaster report, why was that something you felt was important to include?
AC: There was a lot more insight that we were able to gain from 50 states versus one, so the recommendations for the New York report were really focused on [creating] a collaborative process and then the funding sources—how to raise dollars, including insurance and voter-approved bond act, which also appear in our federal report.However, there were so many other things that we were able to see when we were following the [national] data. So, our recommendations center on federal policy and the way in which our government has been administering funding after storms, though communities at that point have already suffered.
CH: In the report, you note that the federal disaster declarations you cite don’t tell the entire story of extreme weather in the US, offering examples like heat events and funding from other agencies that might step in after a disaster. Can you speak more about this?
AC: It was a really big ‘aha’ moment when we were looking at Arizona and Nevada and even just looking at the US map, trying to understand how disasters skip over certain communities. And with just a little bit of research, we were able to tell that both Nevada and Arizona had really high mortality rates for heat waves. So, we pulled the Stafford Act and tried to really understand it, and we learned that there's kind of a little bit of a discrepancy about whether or not people believe that FEMA has the power to include heat waves as federally-declared disasters. But regardless, they haven't, so even if they can, they have not yet; if they can't, then we need to fix it.
We need to be thinking about how disasters affect full communities, not just on the economic side, which is how most of our federal disaster declarations are measured.
CH: What is your hope for how this report will be utilized moving forward?
AC: We just want to let people know that this data exists—the report is so comprehensive that there are so many different stories to tell. We've gotten emails from different emergency managers and state policy people who wanted to walk through and really understand what their state was communicating, and that is very exciting. We briefed a number of federal agencies about our recommendations and they kind of—not surprisingly—were all thinking about the same things, but are still challenged with the mechanisms in which to change or amend our current practices. So, that was also very encouraging.
This is just the beginning—we are planning a bigger, wider release of the state packets in the states and also talking to the types of organizations that are really going to care—for instance, the National Association of Counties or the National Governors Association.
CH: Is there anything I haven’t asked here that you think is important for people to understand about this work?
AC: I think it's important people understand that they can go on our website and look up their own state. You can download a packet for each individual state which tells your state’s story and how your state fits into the order of different stats. We have included, for instance, the number of federal disaster declarations by state going from highest to lowest, which tells a very interesting story if you want to compare your state to other places. We did that same type of order for per capita disaster spending from the federal government and you're able to see what states are getting more funding. These are all very interesting exercises.
The My World's on Fire book club is officially up and running on Threadable! We're currently chatting about The Big Ones by Dr. Lucy Jones, and the conversations in the margins range from muses on disaster-related music to the politics involved in disaster aid. Download the free app now to join us—you can comment along on your own time with this read and get ready for a new selection to be shared next week!
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Now, here’s a
for reading to the end.
Colleen
