New study makes concerning finding about homeowners' preparedness for disaster: 'It's burned into my brain'
A new Bankrate study reported that only 52% of female homeowners in the United States feel financially prepared to face disasters caused by extreme weather. The statistic may stand out more when compared to the 67% of male homeowners who said they felt prepared.
While there are many factors at play, the study indicated that an increase in extreme weather events due to the effects of increasing global temperatures can exacerbate a national gender pay gap and leave women more vulnerable to disasters.
The Environmental Protection Agency says extreme weather events are on the rise as a result of higher temperatures, putting people across the globe at risk. Although isolated severe weather has always caused problems for humans, 99.9% of scientific papers agree humans have contributed to the higher average temperatures worldwide that in turn can supercharge weather events.
The EPA even tracks weather patterns to determine whether heat-trapping gases and other environmental factors are causing changes, reviewing weather events that have happened since the 1800s. According to the World Meteorological Organization, natural climate variability can lead to extreme weather, but a warming climate can contribute to the frequency and intensity of these events.
On the pay front, in 2023, American women made 82.7% of the income their male counterparts earned. That number has fallen from 84% in 2022, according the Census Bureau. The disparity means women are less likely to have emergency savings for expenses encountered during weather disasters.
Bankrate spoke with Lynn Boudreaux, a single mom from New Orleans who tried to evacuate before Hurricane Katrina. Boudreaux headed to Tallahassee with her young son when her parents, still in the storm zone, chose to stay behind and ride out the storm. She said she felt she couldn't leave them and decided to turn around.
"It's burned into my brain; I'll never forget it," she told the publication. "The storm hit around midnight, and it was loud. The wind was rattling the windows; it was just so loud. Then it sounded like there was a train nearby. Later, we found out that a little tornado touched down and tore off the second story of the house behind us."
Bankrate offers a list of financial tips and tricks to help homeowners feel more financially secure in the face of disaster. But the best way to ensure security is through policy promoting a greener future. In 1990, Washington began a plan to reduce heat-trapping pollution 95% by 2050. Similarly, California's Advanced Clean Cars Program imposes pollution standards for all cars.
These regulations can add up to improve the air we breathe and combat increasing temperatures, so by advocating for a cleaner environment, we can have an active hand in rebuilding a safer world.
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Forbes
4 days ago
- Forbes
20 Years After Katrina - Reflection And Preparation In Mississippi
The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season is here, and most experts are expecting another active season. The 2024 season spawned Helene and Milton. Two storms that took their place in infamy given the significant loss of life and damage caused as they ravaged the southeastern United States. August will mark the 20th anniversary of another infamous storm that changed the Gulf Coast region forever - Hurricane Katrina. On the eve of his annual Hurricane House preparedness event, "new-ish: Mississippi resident and noted storm chaser Josh Morgerman reflects on the overlooked stories in the state. Hurricane Katrina made an initial landfall on August 25th, 2005 as a Category 1 hurricane. After moving across southern Florida, it became a dangerous Category 5 storm feeding off of extremely warm waters in the Gulf. According to the NWS Mobile website, 'Katrina weakened to a Category 3 before making landfall (on August 29th) along the northern Gulf Coast, first in southeast Louisiana (sustained winds: 125mph) and then made landfall once more along the Mississippi Gulf Coast (sustained winds: 120mph).' A 2023 NOAA report indicated, 'Katrina was responsible for a total of nearly 1400 combined direct and indirect fatalities. This includes 520 direct deaths — 341 in Louisiana, 172 in Mississippi, 6 in Florida, and 1 in Georgia.' Over 500 indirect deaths, mostly cardiovascular causes, were ultimately reported as well. Katrina still ranks as the third deadliest hurricane in U.S. history behind the Galveston hurricane of 1900 (8000+ deaths) and the 1928 Lake Okeechobee, Florida hurricane (2500+ deaths). For Mississippi, there was a bit of a double-whammy. As the storm made landfall in Louisiana, coastal Mississippi was located on the 'dirty' side of the eye. The motion of the storm combined with counterclockwise wind flow produces the strongest winds and highest surge in that region. Additionally, Katrina made another landfall near Hancock County, Mississippi as a Category hurricane. The track of Hurricane Katrina (2005). NOAA The NWS Mobile Office website has an excellent summary of the storm. It stated, 'Known for its storm surge, Katrina's highest surge was found in a zone from just east of the eye near Bay St. Louis, MS east to the northern reaches of Mobile Bay.' Morgerman, who goes by iCyclone in the chaser world, has settled in the Bay St. Louis area and has even built a hurricane-fortified home called 'Hurricane House.' He told me, "New Orleans of course dominated the headlines. But what happened in Mississippi was also cataclysmic. It's hard to put it into words. Whole neighborhoods were swept away—left unrecognizable.' Morgerman, who has penetrated the cores of 80 hurricanes and typhoons around the globe (a world record), went on to say, 'I feel like every longtime Coastal Mississippian divides their life into two eras: Before Katrina and After Katrina." However, the Mississippi resident has a better understanding of his part of the U.S. Gulf Coast is prone to really big storm surges. He said, "I didn't understand why until I started living here. You go the beach and you want to take a swim, and it's like you have to walk a mile out just to get in up to your waist. The water is crazy shallow—it's nuts. And shallow water offshore means big surges.' To date, the two biggest storm surges in U.S. history happened in Mississippi - Katrina (2005) and Camille (1969). Downtown Bay Saint Louis has very little elevation, so many buildings were destroyed in Katrina though a small bluff protected some of the buildings located in the downtown area. According to Morgerman, 'Residential areas within a couple of blocks of the water were just obliterated.' Morgerman took a different approach with his home. His 'Hurricane House' uses things like Jamies Hardie fiber cement siding that repels water and is impact-resistant. He also incorporated premium construction materials likeresistant to Premium construction material like 2 x 6 studs on the perimeter of the house; Solid, raised chain wall foundations; continuous load path construction to reinforce connection points; and a system of cables in the walls to resist uplift from the wind. So why did Morgerman choose to build his Gold Fortified home there. "Except for that one cinderblock house next door, every house you can see was built after Katrina. This whole neighborhood was swept away in the storm.' According to the storm chaser, Hurricane House was actually built on the grave of another house. For the past couple of years, Morgerman has hosted an event at Hurricane House. The event attracts some of the nation's top meteorologists, emergency management officials, media and decision-makers. He reflected, "'Now, I want to be really clear: This event is not a celebration of hurricanes! I don't want the neighbors to run me out of town with torches and pitchforks.' Josh leverages his visibility and platform for a different reason. He told me, 'It's to celebrate awareness and preparedness. And twenty years after Katrina, that hits home for folks here.' In 2024, I documented the story of Hurricane House. The website wrote, 'The fortified construction method is a voluntary construction standard backed by decades of research, that your roofing contractor or builder can use to help protect your home against severe weather.' It is a program established by Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety and is comprised of three levels of certification: Bronze, Silver, or Gold. Morgerman added, 'Folks don't realize this, but we can build for hurricanes. We're not completely at their mercy.' Like anyone with common sense living in the Gulf region, Morgerman knows that it is not a matter of 'if' but 'when' the next strong hurricane hits the region. He remarked, "'I built my home with specific sponsors and engineering under the assumption that it's gonna get whacked a few times. My philosophy is: Don't build in fear of hurricanes—build with the *expectation* of hurricanes. Calm down, accept the inevitable, and just build accordingly.' The Gulf Coast region has a disproportionate number of socio-economically vulnerable communities. Many households may not be able to afford a hurricane-fortified house, but preparation still matters to them too. According to the Mississippi Center for Justice website, 'When Hurricane Katrina devastated the southern half of Mississippi in 2005, more than 60 percent of single-family dwellings were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable.' Those numbers were even higher for rental properties. Such events, according to MCJ, 'Created even more displaced residents in a state where safe and affordable housing was already out of reach for so many low-income and minority residents.' Everyone, irrespective of race, income, or status was impacted by Hurricane Katrina, which makes Morgerman's message about preparedness even more important. Hurricanes are already bad enough and in recent years, many storms approaching the Gulf Coast have rapidly intensified, which means even less time to prepare. As the 2025 season ramps up, it is critical that individuals, government agencies, businesses and stakeholders have proactive plans. A 2024 National Academies report on compound disasters in the Gulf region cautioned about risk, resiliency, and response in the region. Key messages centered around:
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Bryan Norcross discusses how AI will become critical forecasting tool this hurricane season
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Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Boston Globe
The man whose D-Day weather forecast saved the world
On June 6, 1944, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered more than 150,000 Allied troops to storm the beaches of Normandy in one of the largest seaborne invasions in history. But hours before, Eisenhower's eyes were fixed not on the battlefield, but on the skies. More precisely, on the weather report laid out before him. And the meteorologist who had created it, described by his son as 'a dour irascible Scot,' had to get it right. 'The weather forecast was a go or no-go,' said Catherine Ross, a library and archive manager at the Met Office, the weather service for the United Kingdom. 'Everything else was ready.' Advertisement Success demanded a very specific set of conditions: ▪ Before the landings, the weather needed to be calm for 48 hours. ▪ For the three days following, the wind needed to stay below Beaufort Force 4, equivalent to a moderate breeze. ▪ Parachutists and other air support needed less than 30 percent cloud cover below 8,000 feet, with a cloud base no lower than 2,500 feet and visibility of over 3 miles. Advertisement ▪ A low tide at dawn was needed to expose German defenses. ▪ The invasion had to occur one day before or four days after a full moon for nighttime operations. ▪ Furthermore, the invasion had to align with the Soviet summer offensive in the East, to maximize pressure on German forces. The Allies identified a window: between June 5 and June 7. The odds were daunting. According to Ross, the likelihood of all the desired weather conditions aligning was 13-to-1— and roughly triple that once the full moon was added to the equation. Making matters worse, the beginning of June brought a spell of highly unsettled weather. 'There was a succession of low pressures and fronts coming across the Channel, and the challenge was trying to find a gap,' she said. 'Not just to allow them to invade, but to be able to get enough backup troops and supplies across.' The fifth 'was the ideal day,' Eisenhower recalled in an interview 20 years later. But the date was subject to last-minute revision in the event of bad weather. The man tasked with delivering that all-important forecast was Stagg, the chief meteorological adviser to Eisenhower from the British Meteorological Office. He was responsible for producing a unified forecast based on input from three independent groups, two British and one American. With today's advanced forecasting, and the help of supercomputers, satellites, and a range of sophisticated models, meteorologists can produce fairly accurate predictions several days in advance. But there was no unified approach to forecasting in 1944. The American team, part of the newly formed US Strategic Air Forces based near Eisenhower's headquarters in southwest London, employed analog forecasting, a method that compared current conditions to historical weather patterns. The British teams relied on hand-drawn charts, observational data and, newer understandings of upper-atmosphere patterns. These approaches often clashed. Advertisement 'At the time, it was very much an evolving science that evolved in different ways in different countries,' said Dan Suri, a meteorologist at the Met Office. Suri said that some of these methods remain in use today, albeit digitally. 'Aspects of what they did still feature, and the D-Day forecasters would recognize aspects of what they did in what we do today,' he said. James Stagg's job was not just scientific, but diplomatic — a delicate act of balancing contrasting forecasts from the American and British teams, and shaping them into a coherent narrative with a single decisive recommendation for Eisenhower. 'That wasn't always entirely possible,' Suri said. 'He had quite a difficult job, really.' Ahead of the invasion, tensions rose between the forecasting teams. Transcripts from the daily telephone discussions among Stagg, the general, and the three forecasting teams revealed a strong difference of opinions among the groups. The American meteorologists believed that June 5 or 6 would offer suitable weather. The British, however, opposed June 5. 'He had to make the decision of which side he was going to go with,' Ross said, 'and take that to Eisenhower.' According to professor Julian Hunt in his book 'D-Day: The Role of the Met Office,' a high-pressure system over the Atlantic Ocean and a strong storm near northern Scotland were expected to cause rough seas and excessive cloud cover in the English Channel on June 5. James Stagg delivered his decision: Gales would sweep through Normandy, making landings impossible. 'He gave us the worst report you ever saw,' Eisenhower later recalled. Convoys that had already set off were ordered to turn back. Advertisement But by June 4, forecasts indicated that the storm system would shift northeast, giving way to a brief period of calmer conditions June 6. Still, Stagg was uncertain. His diary reveals his doubt: 'I am now getting rather stunned— it is all a nightmare.' Ross said the decision to go ahead was a compromise. 'It was a question of, will the sixth be good enough? And the call was, yes, it will be good enough. But it was a challenge.' Eventually, the American and British meteorologists moved toward consensus for June 6. On the evening of June 4, Stagg returned with the more optimistic forecast. Eisenhower later described a 'little grin on his face.' 'We hoped that with this break, we could do it,' Eisenhower later said. After a brief moment of contemplation—'about 45 seconds,' he recalled— he gave the order that would change the course of history: 'OK, we'll go.' The invasion went ahead June 6, 1944, but the forecast turned out to be off the mark. Suri said that, instead of moving northeast, the storm over northern Scotland shifted southward into the North Sea, weakening as it did. This unexpected change allowed winds to ease slightly, and visibility improved as the front over northern France moved away. 'That's why things got better,' Suri said. 'So they were right for the wrong reasons.' But conditions were windy, and the seas remained rough. Many of the first troops to cross the English Channel had 'considerable seasickness,' The Associated Press wrote, and the strong winds whipped up whitecaps, making the journey to the beaches even more punishing. Advertisement The marginal weather may have given the Allies a vital edge. In the aftermath of the invasion, as the weight of its success came into focus, the full significance of the meteorological gamble became clear. In a memorandum accompanying an official report to Eisenhower, Stagg reflected on just how close they had come to disaster. Had the invasion been postponed to the next suitable tides, the troops would have faced the Channel's worst storm in 20 years. 'Thanks,' Eisenhower wrote in response. 'And thank the Gods of war we went when we did.' This article originally appeared in
