Recovery

Survivors of natural disasters — especially the hurricanes that have hit the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico the past two decades — report years of neglect, chaos and mismanagement of emergency response.

In Osceola, at the Heart Memorial Library, the county’s disaster recovery center, a steady stream of residents seeking assistance after the hurricane walked in and out of the building.

Deborah Beidel, a psychologist and University of Central Florida psychology professor, said those who found their homes uninhabitable after the storm may experience trauma responses to cope with the losses.

Landing at the Southwest Florida Regional Airport, Biden will be joined by First Lady Jill Biden and officials with FEMA who plan to board a helicopter and fly over heavily hit areas.

Final tallies aren’t in yet, but it’s clear Ian brought historic levels of storm surge from Key West to Naples to Fort Myers, Fla., with some spots seeing at least seven feet of water above dry land.

The independent commission's report examined how FEMA's response efforts differed between Harvey, which killed at least 68 people in Texas, and Maria, which killed 2,975 in Puerto Rico. The response in Texas was on a "larger scale" and faster than in Puerto Rico.

The governor's request will need to be approved by President Biden. Though a state-level emergency was already declared, federal approval of the request would mean that at least 75% of eligible disaster costs would be reimbursed by the federal government.

We're not back in that carefree spot yet. We may never return to that place again. But restaurants, stores, theaters and schools are open. Crowds are gathering. Masks are mostly optional, and COVID-19 is often treatable.

"If they get a check for only $179 that is just an initial” relief grant for contractor estimates, FEMA federal coordinating officer Brett Howard said on a conference call with media Sept 1.

As California wildfires grow more intense and frequent, many children who live through them experience lasting psychological trauma such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Children may also develop sleep problems, or struggle in school.

The first tranche, sent last year, was focused on recovering from the pandemic. In some local jurisdictions, that meant law enforcement agencies got millions, a federal oversight website shows.

In 2018, Folly Beach along with a 26-mile stretch underwent emergency beach renourishment to restore sand lost from Hurricanes. The damage was so bad that the Army Core of Engineers paid for the entire cost of renourishment.

“Our project will install larger culverts, raise the road up above the flood elevation, so vehicles can pass and enter and exit the subdivision without having to go through hazardous waters.”

Based on a 2020 survey of fire departments, the DNR estimated there were 63,200 to 96,300 gallons of PFAS-containing foam on hand, including more than 30,000 gallons of expired or unwanted foam.

FEMA has provided more than $1 billion in public assistance grants to Massachusetts to reimburse pandemic-related expenses. Nearly $6.6 million will go to UMass Amherst.

Billings, Mont., officials have been working for the past year to create mobile response teams through the Fire Department that could dispatch EMTs to service calls for people who are in distress.

Switching homeowners policies after a wildfire can leave Californians paying two to three times more money for equivalent coverage — and, despite state interventions, some insurers are pulling back from writing policies in fire-prone areas.

Results from a new survey of more than 100,000 COVID-19 survivors released Tuesday by genetics company 23andMe offer further evidence of a biological cause for the persistent syndrome known as long COVID.