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PHOTOGRAPH BY LUKE SHARRETT, BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
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The silver lining in New Orleans is an example of a worldwide trend: Globally, the number of deaths from natural disasters, which fluctuates sharply from year to year, has trended way down in recent decades. That’s true in absolute terms, and even more so when calculated as a percentage of global population, which has dramatically increased during the same period. Humans are smart. We can adapt and learn to protect ourselves.
Within limits, of course—and there is no question, as the recent IPCC report made plain, that climate change is probing those limits. It’s intensifying hurricanes in the Gulf, for example, and intensifying drought in California and elsewhere in the West, which makes the fire season there more dangerous.
“How many ‘natural’ disasters can one city endure?” A few days before Ida hit, my colleague Sarah Gibbens asked that question about another Louisiana city, Lake Charles. It was hit by two hurricanes in 2020. Another storm this past May dropped 18 inches of rain and created a 1,000-year flood on the city. Mercifully, Lake Charles escaped the worst of Ida—but the community has been struggling, as pictured below. Gibbens spoke to one couple, the Jolivettes, who’ve been living in their tool shed since Hurricane Laura hit last August. She spoke to the mayor, Nic Hunter, about just how hard it is to get public attention and federal assistance when the storm is gone and you’re not New Orleans.
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