Houses on stilts are a way to mitigate coastal climate change. But they aren’t accessible. When Superstorm Sandy flooded Liz Treston’s home on the South Shore of Long Island, she worried her wheelchair would prevent first responders from rescuing her. So Treston, a quadriplegic, wrote her Social Security number on her arm with a Sharpie,…
New from Pacific Standard: On February 2nd, 2018, Aníbal Dones Flores, 54, woke up in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, with an asthma attack. It was almost half a year after Hurricane Maria had savaged the island, but Flores still didn’t have power in his house. His condition grew worse as he labored to awaken his…
I wrote a long feature for Pacific Standard about disability and disaster response: There are four basic different types of needs related to disability that emerge in the aftermath of disasters: health maintenance (medicine, electricity, medical care), ability to move in and through physical areas, effective communication access, and what the experts call “program access.”…
I talked to Jacob Remes about Critical Disaster Studies, Hurricane Maria, Imperialism, Trump, and more. New at Pacific Standard: “At the heart [of the field] is a saying that became common in the 1970s: There’s no such thing as a natural disaster. There are hazards, some of which are natural (earthquakes, tornadoes, river floods) and…