Disasters

"Exposure to high temperatures could result in long-lasting damage to health of billions of people, scientists warn"

"The operator of New England’s electric grid warned Monday that the Trump administration’s move to halt a nearly completed offshore wind farm will cause risks to the reliability of the electric grid."

"Israeli strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza killed five journalists Monday, according to health officials, including one who days earlier had reported for The Associated Press on children being treated for starvation at the same facility."

"Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) risk exposing the US to another Hurricane Katrina, staff at the agency have warned Congress in a withering critique that also takes aim at its current leadership."

"A vaccine in development may slow the spread of Nipah virus, which kills up to 75 percent of the people it sickens, but reducing the environmental disruptions that bring people, livestock and bats together could be more effective." 

"The fire burned for about nine hours, billowing smoke and scorching the wooden trestles of a nearly 75-year-old railroad bridge that spans the Marys River in Corvallis, home to Oregon State University."

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will now require disaster survivors to register for federal aid using an email address—a departure from previous policy where email addresses were optional. The move, FEMA employees tell WIRED, puts people across the US with little to no access to internet services at risk of losing out on crucial federal financial assistance after disasters."

"If a major hurricane approaches Central Florida this season, Maria knows it’s dangerous to stay inside her wooden, trailer-like home. In past storms, she evacuated to her sister’s sturdier house. If she couldn’t get there, a shelter set up at the local high school served as a refuge if needed. But with accelerating detentions and deportations of immigrants across her community of Apopka, 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of Orlando, Maria, an agricultural worker from Mexico without permanent U.S. legal status, doesn’t know if those options are safe."

"A train derails and spills at least 1,000 gallons of hazardous materials in the U.S. about once every two months. Nearly half of those derailments resulted in evacuations; more than a quarter resulted in a fire or explosion since 2015, an analysis of federal derailment data showed. And many communities along the rail lines aren’t prepared to keep people safe when it happens."