Keeping it 100

Thanks for reading My World’s on Fire, a newsletter about disasters from journalist Colleen Hagerty. Let’s make this a regular thing—subscribe for disaster deep-dives, Q&As, and context in your inbox on Thursday evenings.

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 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. 

Then, I brought you all along with me to a prescribed burn in that region—and co-published an explainer for those unfamiliar with what a “prescribed burn” entails. 

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. 

Last, but certainly not least, I’ve repeatedly spoken with grassroots leaders from organizations including West Street Recovery, CrowdSource Rescue, and the Anthropocene Alliance to uplift their community-based knowledge on these subjects. 

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. 

Admittedly, I got a bit meta speaking about what a disaster even is with the editors of Critical Disaster Studies. 

I also shared perspectives from people on the frontlines of climate change about terminology like “climate migration” and “climate refugees.”

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.

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.

But I didn’t just look at the programs offered by agencies—I looked into the agencies themselves. That includes the equity challenges inside FEMA and the greater emergency management field—which I also tried to “demystify” for readers. 

Thanks again for making space for me in your inboxes for all these weeks—here’s to the next 100!

I’ll be hosting the monthly MWOF Twitter Space next Tuesday, July 26th, at 5pm Pacific (8pm Eastern). I’m very excited to have Dr. Carlee Purdum as my guest. We’ll be talking about a report she recently co-published on extreme heat and Covid-19 in Texas prisons, which you can read here. As a reminder, only members will receive a newsletter next week, which will include a recap of our chat.

It will definitely be an interesting conversation, so be sure to click the link below to set a reminder for the Space:

thank you for subscribing to My World’s on Fire.

This newsletter exists because of MWOF members. So, if you find value in it valuable, you can keep it coming by subscribing.

Or, if you’re not into commitment, you can buy me a coffee (given the temperature this week, I’ll take it iced).

A special subscriber shout-out this week to my sister, Nicole. She’s played an integral role throughout this newsletter’s run by sending me the vast majority of the “little something” links at the end of each newsletter. I think we all owe her a thank you for that!

Now, here’s that little something for reading to the end.

Colleen