#Natural Disaster Recovery

[westvalleyfaultph]

World Bank Commits $1.25 Billion for Safer Schools and Sustainable Recovery in the Philippines

The Philippines gets a big boost from the World Bank! In a recent decision, the World Bank approved $1.25 billion in funding for two key projects aimed at improving education, economic recovery, and environmental sustainability. Schools Built to Last: Safer Learning Environments for Filipino Students One project, the “Infrastructure for Safer and Resilient Schools Project,” allocates $500…

[bigvolcano]

Tweed flood restoration continues two years on from disaster

A total of 3,742 road damage items were logged across the Tweed following the disaster, with additional damage to water and wastewater infrastructure, parks and sports fields, and some 90 Council-owned buildings impacted by the floodwaters.

Progress made but still a long way to go Residents survey the destruction of Blacks Drain along Tweed Valley Way at South Murwillumbah in the days following the February-March 2022 deluge. (Photo credit Toni Kelly Fleeton) Flood recovery remains a major focus of Tweed Shire Council, as the community marks two years since the worst natural disaster in the Tweed’s recorded history.Current…

[reasonsforhope]

"To mark the birth of their first child, Sienna, in 2018, Kevin and Kelly Williams planted a tangerine tree in their Lahaina yard. When their second child Malia arrived in 2020, they added a lime tree.

But the trees never had a chance to bear fruit before the Aug. 8, 2023 wildfire destroyed them, along with the Williams family’s home, their property management business and most of the town.

Now, on their new property in Ukumehame about 15 minutes south of Lahaina, the family is growing a much bigger bounty — about 220 trees, all native species, that one day will return to the backyards of families like theirs.

“Absolutely amazing to be able to think one day we can drive through Lahaina and see the trees that we helped raise,” Kevin Williams said. 

Over the past year and a half, a sprawling network of volunteers, local farmers, nurseries and hotels have stepped up to host thousands of young trees growing in pots that will be replanted in Lahaina through the Treecovery Hawai‘i project. 

Since launching in November 2023, the initiative has bloomed into 6,200 trees being cared for at 25 grow hubs, with about 160 already replanted at the handful of homes that have been rebuilt in Lahaina and Kula. While displaced families focus on returning to their homes, the volunteers are making sure the trees and the soil are nurtured and ready to shade and feed the community for years to come. 

“It really does a lot to people’s minds and hearts when they see growth and they see that rebirth of the land,” said Duane Sparkman, founder and president of Treecovery and chair of the Maui County Arborist Committee. “Restoring the ‘āina from the soil up is what we have to do.” 

THE ROOTS

When 59-year-old Ekolu Lindsey talks to relatives from his dad’s generation about Lahaina, the smell of mangos comes to mind. Everyone had their favorite fruit trees in Lahaina, and oftentimes they were the ones in their own yards, said Lindsey, who lost his Front Street home in the fire. 

“All those stories, it’s the memories of home. It’s all part of who we are as people,” said Lindsey, a Treecovery board member and head of Maui Cultural Lands, a nonprofit that works to protect and restore Hawaiian resources across the island.

Lahaina was historically home to a canopy of fruit trees, including breadfruit, which gave rise to the name Malu ‘Ulu o Lele, “the shaded breadfruit grove of Lele.” They helped create a cooler climate, capture rainwater and mitigate soil erosion, independent researcher Adam Keawe Manalo-Camp wrote in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ “Ka Wai Ola” publication. The removal of breadfruit trees and diversion of streams to pave the way for sugar cane production in the mid-1800s dried up the once productive landscape and opened the door for invasive species. 

The 2023 fire again razed the trees of Lahaina — about 21,000, according to Treecovery’s estimates — and burned so hot that it likely killed microbes in the soil as deep as 18 inches underground, Sparkman said. In Kula and Lahaina, federal workers scraped 6 inches of soil off the top of each property and tested it for contaminants before people were allowed to rebuild. 

Struck by how barren the land was, Sparkman and his team launched Treecovery with the goal of growing 30,000 trees to replace what Lahaina lost. Lindsey sits on the board along with Matthew Murasko, Rodger May and cultural adviser Archie Kalepa. 

The idea was to establish grow hubs where trees could be nurtured until residents were ready to plant. The Royal Lahaina Resort, where Sparkman is the chief engineer, served as a staging site before the very first grow hub opened with 125 fruit tree saplings at the Marriott’s Maui Ocean Club in April 2024. 

The network grew to nearly every corner of the island, from the Kā‘anapali Beach Resort to the Fairmont Kea Lani to the Kahului Airport and independent growers in East Maui. It’s a labor of love where the on-site workers or volunteers water, weed and transfer the plants to larger pots as they grow.

Treecovery takes requests for trees on their website, buys them from local nurseries and transports them to the grow hubs where they are cared for and labeled with the names of the families they will be donated to, according to Murasko, an entrepreneur, product designer and brand builder who met Sparkman while volunteering in Honokōwai Valley 17 years ago. Murasko said they’ve raised about $600,000 and that they pay full price for the trees and pots to help support local businesses. The trees cost about $100 each but can get as expensive as $2,000 for a 65-gallon mango tree or $3,000 to move and install a large palm tree, Sparkman said.

There are a variety of trees, including native species like koai‘a and ‘a‘ali‘i; fruit trees like Mapulehu mango, dwarf avocado, peach and citrus; and flowering trees such as plumeria and puakenikeni...

Sparkman, a longtime landscaper and former scientific biological technician at Haleakalā National Park who has been honored for his organic landscaping practices, said Treecovery wants to return the natural system of healthy microbes into the soil. 

The steady recovery of the iconic 150-year-old banyan tree is proof that it can work. Sparkman said it’s grown “leaps and bounds” more than they expected with the help of 500 gallons of microbial life, rich with fungi and bacteria that trees need and pests can’t survive in. 

“It takes years for nature to put it back, but man can help it by pulling these indigenous microbes and moving it for nature,” he said.""

-via Maui Now, April 28, 2025

[wachinyeya]

04.16.2025 -- Story by Richard Luscombe

Dozens of gopher tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus) survived a perilous sea crossing after being swept from their homes during Hurricane Helene last summer and are enjoying a new lease on life on a remote stretch of Florida coastline.

Rangers at Fort De Soto county park near St. Petersburg say that before the September storm only eight members of the vulnerable species were known to be living there.

Now, after the astonishing journey, a count last month confirmed 84 active burrows, suggesting the tortoises quickly adapted to their new habitat after their forced eviction from Florida’s Egmont Key National Wildlife Refuge, a tiny island more than three kilometers (two miles) southwest that was pummeled by the Category 4 hurricane.

As well as sparking a surge of interest in the park in the form of visitors keen to catch a glimpse of the unexpected new arrivals, the tortoises are providing benefits for some of the animals that already lived in the 445-hectare (1,100-acre) environment.

“They’re a keystone species, which means they share their burrows with other species, and there’s been something like 250 different species recorded as living in gopher tortoise burrows,” says Anna Yu, a Fort De Soto ranger who has assumed responsibility for the roving reptiles’ well-being.

“Everybody in the ecosystem benefits from gopher tortoises being there, and we’ll hopefully see an increase in biodiversity in the park. Because we have all these new burrows, other animals are able to use them, like eastern diamondback snakes, black racers, all kinds of different reptiles,” she says.

“The last time a gopher frog was listed as being one of the species in the park was in 2016, so it’s really cool to think that maybe some of these really imperiled species that rely on gopher tortoise burrows to survive might make their way back.

“I don’t expect to see frogs popping up everywhere, but there’s certainly more of a chance than before this happened.”

Yu and her colleagues knew the tortoises had come across the water from Egmont Key because biologists from St. Petersburg’s Eckerd College, who were studying them, had drilled small holes in their shells as identification markings.

Tortoises are poor swimmers, and many likely drowned during the hurricane. At least 40 were discovered washed up dead. But the survivors, Yu says, would have floated and been carried on the surface as Helene’s winds whipped the water surging toward the beaches of the mainland. “It’s like they knew exactly where to go; they went a little bit higher in hopes of not being drowned out by another storm. There’s a little bit of intelligence there,” she says.

Even more exciting are the mating behaviors some of the tortoises have exhibited, suggesting a new generation of gopher tortoises will soon be plodding around.

“It’s a sign they’re thriving. Being able to mate is a sign of success,” Yu says.

“The main point in all this is that we want to make sure Fort De Soto is, above all, a wild place and home to an abundance of wildlife that depends on the people that come through, depends on their respect and all of our collective stewardship of their habitat to survive.

“I think this is a really ecologically important event. It’s a feel good story too, of course, but it’s also very critically important environmentally.”

“The whole event was just sheer luck that they ended up at Fort De Soto and not out at sea, or at some of the other beaches north of St. Pete Beach and Treasure Island, really popular beaches that don’t have the habitat to support these creatures,” she says. “It could have turned out a lot differently for them.”

Their behaviors since washing ashore have also fascinated observers. Some of the tortoises, presumably traumatized by their hazardous odyssey, burrowed deep into higher elevations. The majority of the burrows, Yu says, were dug beyond Helene’s storm surge line.

[carpe-noctem-sub-astra]

Jensen Ackles is riddiculosly handsome in every random pictures. Sometimes it still surprises me.

I love Rob Benedict

Cockles (especially on the black and white one. They can't stay separated long)

Link

[warpedwings]

[political-us]

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she planned to “eliminate” the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) during a televised Cabinet meeting Monday.

While giving a status report on border security, Noem added, “and we’re going to eliminate FEMA.” She did not elaborate.

[mfrance-writes]

Helene: The Aftermath in Appalachia

Today marks 5 weeks since Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on East Tennessee and Western North Carolina. If you aren't aware, Hurricane Helene is no longer considered a natural disaster. The storm has been upgraded to a Geological Event.

This means that Helene changed the actual geological features of our area. Whole mountain tops are washed away in North Carolina. Also, in North Carolina, entire towns are literally gone, washed away, leveled completely. They may not be able to rebuild to be on future maps ever again.

In Hartford, Tennessee (where white-water rafting is a main source of tourism), the flooding changed the course and width of the river. The rapids have even changed so that the rafting companies are unsure when or if they'll be able to open for next season. Where there was farm acreage before in Cocke County, Greene County, and other East Tennessee counties there is now riverbed, including HUGE river rocks, instead. Even if the riverbed wasn't physically deposited in people's farms, the condition of the soil has been changed, and they don't know when or if they can use that land to farm crops again.

Hours after the water rushed through, we knew that some roads between Tennessee and North Carolina were washed away. However, five weeks later, we are seeing more bridges collapse in my area because of the force of the water that rushed underneath them. A railroad trestle collapsed and fell into the road at the end of last week in my area as a direct result of the flooding. (No one was hurt, thank goodness.) In places where the river made it right up to the banks of the roads, those roads are collapsing in some areas now and requiring closures for repair or indefinite closes and rerouting traffic.

Even with the help of TEMA, FEMA, and Dolly Parton, government officials are saying that it may take upwards of a decade for us to recover from this storm. But, with all the changes caused by Helene, what will that recovery look like? We don't know yet. It's five weeks later, and we're still figuring out all the damage Helene caused.

[tragicbeauty1991]

Not my usual fandom content but I wanted to post here because I haven’t seen nearly as many people talking about the devastation in the Southeastern US from Hurricane Helene as I would have expected and wanted to make those who may not know the extent of the damage more aware of the situation from my personal experience. I don’t think people who aren’t living it realize just HOW bad it is.

This is a map showing the areas with power outages in the immediate aftermath of the storm and some stats on the rainfall.

I live in upstate SC, and we have been without power since the storm hit Friday. That means some of us have gone about a week with no refrigeration, no AC (it gets toasty down here even in the fall), no internet, no way of powering critical things like oxygen machines for those who require it, and no cell service in some places. We are slowly getting power back but the number of people without power is still in the thousands. Luckily, we do have a generator at my house and we didn’t have any major damage to the house, cars, etc. There are trees and power lines down everywhere, though. I heard about one older lady and her husband who had a tree fall on their camper with them in it… He passed away holding her hand while being crushed by the tree. She is in the hospital and will need rehab. It is getting easier now but for awhile was very difficult to get gas. People were waiting in line for hours. A lot of stores are still just now opening up and groceries are limited because so much was lost with no refrigeration. It was so bad someone pulled a gun in a grocery store to get fresh meat. We had a few places that had a curfew for awhile because all the streetlights and traffic lights were out and it wasn’t really safe to drive. But overall, compared to many, we are doing well. It’s inconvenient but not devastating.

These are some images from Greenville taken during the worst of the storm. I live about 30 minutes away from this area.

Western NC was hit MUCH worse. We were supposed to go to the Asheville/Hendersonville area for my anniversary this past weekend but fortunately we didn’t make it up there because entire towns were just wiped off the map. Chimney Rock Village, one of my favorite places to visit, is just GONE. Asheville was totally cut off from the outside world for a few days and only accessible via air. Flooding there was just DEVASTATING. Parts of I-40 and I-26 between NC and TN were totally washed out. People are reporting coming across bodies of those who didn’t make it out. At one point, over 1000 people in NC were considered missing…

Here’s a pic of the damage to I-40.

And here are some before and after pics of Chimney Rock Village and the surrounding area. Most of what was there is now in Lake Lure.

My church parish (I am Orthodox.) is working with IOCC to help with relief efforts in Western NC. If anyone is able to donate, please consider offering what you can. If you are not comfortable donating through a church organization, I’m sure there are others out there you can donate to but this is one that I know is legit.

If you find a group accepting physical donations rather than cash, these are some suggested guidelines.

Anyone else who has further info on how to donate or who lives in the area and would like to check in, please add your own updates.

[itslenagain]

Everywhere I look, I see

The ghosts of how you used to be

Those bones that stare right back at me

The hot tear rolling down my cheek

The places once so dear to me

And forevermore they still will be

Until you're back up on your feet

You'll live on in the memory

Of every soul in this city

As long and wide as the river's deep

Your heart still fills these broken streets

From the ashes and rubble of Helene

The people follow its steady beat

You won't be the same as you were before

But we'll learn to love you even more

The mountains that we all call home

Still stand proudly after the storm.

[shisabun]

Man, I've been seeing some dumb takes online the past few days. As someone who used to work for an aircraft charity let me just say this: If you're a high profile individual the WORST thing you can do is show up to a disaster zone as soon as it happens.

Rescue organizations and local emergency response teams are going to be scrambling to get organized. Equipment needs to be accounted for and moved, safe zones need to be set up, personnel needs to be briefed and sent to various locations, communications needs to be opened, water lines and electric lines need to be inspected, hospitals need to be prepped. The list goes on.

And when you're a high-profile individual, those resources have to be put on hold to ensure YOUR safety. Instead of clearing roads for emergency vehicles, they'd need to be cleared for YOUR team. Airspace would be held up FOR YOU. Emergency responders would be held up to debrief YOU.

So if you're one of the people asking, "Where is so and so high profile person?" They're where they should be. Out of the way and on standby for further instruction from rescue teams.

Contain, evaluate, mobilize. IN. THAT. ORDER.

If you see a politician showing up at a disaster zone within the first week, they're a selfish a-hole who doesn't care that they're causing delays.

End of story.

[wachinyeya]

Recovery of Endangered Marsupials is Utterly 'Extraordinary'– Population Up 45% Since Australian Bushfires https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/recovery-of-endangered-marsupials-is-utterly-extraordinary-population-up-45-since-australian-bushfires/

[stevviefox]

⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

Hey you know what sucks is predatory companies that make you enter your email address so that they can harass and advertise to you to access resources you might need to keep track of expenses after a disaster. So, uh, fuck them.

If you need to track the cost of things like hotel stays, pet kenneling, medical care, etc. after a disaster you can use this worksheet.

If you need to create an inventory of your home for an insurance claim (and if you'd like to do this to keep someplace safe before a disaster) you can use this worksheet (two pages, instructions on the first page, worksheet on the second).

And here's a FEMA document with numbers for disaster relief groups and a checklist of documents that you may need to have replaced as well as a description of what to do if you had cash in your home that was destroyed and can possibly be replaced.