Last week, this newsletter hit its 100th edition. A fraction of you have received every one of those in your inboxes (and maybe even read them all!), and I am unbelievably grateful for your continued support. I’m also thrilled that so many people have discovered My World’s on Fire over the past two-plus years and decided to sign up!
When I launched, I
wrote that my goal was to “take a small step towards building an informed virtual community around disaster preparedness, resiliency, and recovery efforts.” So, I wanted to mark this milestone by sharing some of the editions that I believe have contributed to that mission, as well as some other themes that have emerged in my reporting for this newsletter over time.
Of course, I’m not going to link to all 100 issues, but please know that I’ll always keep the full MWOF archive free for you to revisit old issues (and please forgive the formatting and any dead links in earlier editions, which were migrated from a different platform).
My World’s on Fire on:
Disaster preparedness, resilience, and recovery
My
first dispatch was about a Washington community that had come together to prepare for the threat of an earthquake and how they were able to adapt that planning to address the immediate threat of Covid-19.
Following Hurricane Laura in the summer of 2020, I
looked at how residents of one impacted community turned to social media to attract attention and aid and dug a bit into the issues with this increasingly common strategy.
With the election approaching, I
wrote about how officials in one community reeling from a wildfire were attempting to make it easier for displaced residents to vote.
Speaking of wildfires, I
highlighted one way residents were sharing their experiences before, during, and after the Dixie Fire.
I
zoomed out to think about preparedness more broadly with the help of experts like Monica Sanders (who recently joined me in a
Twitter Space).
I heard from residents at the center of
an investigation into disaster aid fund disbursement in Texas.
And I
consulted with a water expert on the framework (or lack thereof) that exists in the aftermath of disasters when it comes to water safety.
Language
In the early days of MWOF, I dug into the
no natural disasters campaign, and I’ve since stopped using that phrase in this newsletter.
And I broke down some popular
disaster-related statistics to look at what those figures do and don’t tell us about the actual impacts.
Plus, I
found out one way to get a broad audience more interested in disaster science.
The disaster system
I’ve talked
a lot about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) new flagship grant program, Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities.
Like,
a lot (and I’m not done…)
When the Government Accountability Office released
a report earlier this year on schools and disasters, I pulled out some key takeaways.
And I’ve done
the same from a number of other government hearings and meetings.
Thanks again for making space for me in your inboxes for all these weeks—here’s to the next 100!