By Amy Wold
Two days after Hurricane Katrina, my editor called me over to his desk and pointed to a place on the map below New Orleans. He said, "Try to get somewhere in this area."
At the time there were four adults, two dogs and two children (some of whom were New Orleans evacuees) staying in my onebedroom home so getting "somewhere in this area" sounded like a really good idea.
By JEREMY HARPER
When I went to sleep Wednesday, Sept. 21, Hurricane Rita was threatening the Texas coast, promising to pester Louisiana with no more than a quick bout of tropical storm conditions. I was prepared to ride out the fringe of the storm in either my apartment on the second floor of a sturdy historic building in downtown Lake Charles, La., a city of 75,000 about 40 miles inland of the Gulf of Mexico, or in the newsroom of the American Press, the city's daily newspaper where I have worked for four years as a reporter.
By KATINA GAUDET
"We have a different fear of hurricanes."
My friend Yasmin was trying to rationalize her fearlessness in the face of an imposing Hurricane Katrina, expected to make landfall near New Orleans the next day, from her first-floor Uptown apartment.
But I was having difficulty, although safe in a hotel room near Memphis. I was frantic, yelling into the phone at Yasmin, "You cannot stay there."
Climate change scientist paints a stark and vivid picture
THE WINDS OF CHANGE: CLIMATE, WEATHER AND THE DESTRUCTION OF CIVILIZATIONS By Eugene Linden
Simon & Schuster, $26
By JAN KNIGHT
After a disaster, news coverage can amplify risk, create new health syndromes, study shows.
Disasters and their aftermaths can have repercussions that reach beyond the days or weeks that follow, and news reports can strongly impact public reaction to related risks, even contributing to increased reports of health-related problems that may not be linked to the disaster, a recent study shows.
