"These readings explore what happens when the TV cameras leave and rebuilding is all that’s left."

"Natural disasters are increasingly linked to climate change, and our awareness of them follows a now-familiar pattern. In the words of Inside Climate News Publisher David Sassoon, “A disaster strikes. The news reaches every home for a few days, perhaps a week. A debate erupts over whether climate change is to blame. Victims are profiled. There’s a tally of lives lost and property destroyed, and then the disaster is forgotten.”

We may see stories about the slow pace of recovery at anniversary points — six months later, a year, five years — but mostly our attention shifts to something more current. Our awareness is likely to be even more tenuous in slow disasters such as extended drought when no single event dominates the news in the vivid way a hurricane, heat wave, flood, or wildfire does.

But the story is quite different for those of us who are directly affected. We won’t just move on. Instead, we’ll likely be caught in what we might call a disaster’s long tail, a slow-moving series of effects both immaterial and material."

SueEllen Campbell reports for Yale Climate Connections May 17, 2023. [2]