Best Read Natural Disasters Headlines

Headlines from our Natural Disasters Topic Page with the most time spent reading.

#1 Slow Recovery in Mississippi a Year After Tornado Ripped Town Apart

Apr 9 2024 // OLLING FORK, Miss. (AP) — As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband...

#2 Californians Pay Billions for Power Companies’ Wildfire Prevention Efforts. Are They Cost-Effective?

Dec 5 2024 // Diane Moss lost her home in the Santa Monica Mountains after power lines ignited the apocalyptic Woolsey Fire in 2018. Since then, she’s pressed for a safer electric grid in California.“It’s so easy to...

#3 Recent Earthquakes in Oklahoma Serve as a Reminder of Ongoing Risk

Feb 8 2024 // OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — After a dramatic spike in earthquakes in the early 2010s, state regulators in Oklahoma began taking steps to limit the injection of wastewater from oil and gas extraction deep into the ground. As a...

#4 Volunteers Bring Solar Power to Hurricane Helene Disaster Zone

Oct 15 2024 // Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Helene downed power lines and washed out roads all over North Carolina’s mountains, the constant din of a gas-powered generator is getting to be too much for Bobby Renfro.It’s...

#5 Toilet Paper and Flat Tires: The Strange Ways Californians Ignite Wildfires

Aug 2 2024 // Of all the insidious threats faced by wildland firefighters — extreme heat, desiccated forests, unpredictable fire behavior and a nearly year-round fire season — what might be the most fearsome?Humans. People do...

#6 Hawaii Lawmakers Take Aim at Vacation Rentals After Wildfire Amplifies Housing Crisis

Apr 24 2024 // Amy Chadwick spent years scrimping and saving as a single mother of two to buy a house in the town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. But after a devastating fire leveled Lahaina in August and reduced...

#7 Explaining Deductibles After Multiple Florida Hurricanes

Oct 16 2024 // Deductibles serve several purposes. They provide some premium relief for the insured. They make insureds less likely to file smaller claims because either damage falls within the deductible, or is so close to it that the...

#8 Oil and Gas Power Lines Suspected of Causing Texas Panhandle Wildfires

Aug 1 2024 // When a spate of wildfires tore across the Texas Panhandle in February and scorched 20,000 acres of Craig Cowden’s ranch near Skellytown, he decided he had had enough. Cowden took on a second unofficial job: looking...

#9 Rebuild or What? Florida Towns Hit Three Times by Hurricanes Face Tough Choice

Oct 4 2024 // HORSESHOE BEACH, Fla. (AP) — It was just a month ago that Brooke Hiers left the state-issued emergency trailer where her family had lived since Hurricane Idalia slammed into her Gulf Coast fishing village of Horseshoe...

#10 Texas Panhandle Prepares for State’s Next Big Wildfire

May 28 2024 // LUBBOCK — Spring rains have revived much of the green grass covering stretches of plains in the Texas Panhandle — the same land that, just three months ago, was black from fire and ash after wildfires burned more than...

#11 West Texas Ranchers Face Losses After Historic Wildfires

Mar 20 2024 // LUBBOCK — There are burned spots on Jay O’Brien’s ranch outside Stinnett that predate the Smokehouse Creek fire.Over the last several months, small fires — ones that weren’t pushed by strong winds or...

#12 Hurricane Debby Brings Six Deaths, Widespread Flood Losses in Florida, Georgia, SC

Aug 6 2024 // Hurricane Debby left at least six people dead Monday along with widespread flooding in the same parts of Florida and Georgia that were swamped by Hurricane Idalia less than a year ago.Debby made landfall near Steinhatchee,...

#13 Texas Regulators Suspend Well Permits to Address Rising Earthquake Frequency

Jan 11 2024 // The state’s oil and gas regulatory agency last month suspended nearly two dozen permits that let companies inject saltwater water into the ground, a routine industry practice that regulators said has contributed to...

#14 Surviving the ‘Silver Tsunami’: Closing the Talent, Skills Gap in Underwriting

Dec 20 2024 // With a “silver tsunami” of skilled underwriters eligible to retire in coming years and a shift in employee expectations, recruitment and retention is a critical focus for the insurance industry right now, said...

#15 Utilities’ Extreme Plan to Stop Wildfires: Shut Off the Power

Oct 8 2024 // A growing number of utilities are resorting to an extreme measure to prevent their equipment from sparking catastrophic wildfires: turning off the power.Electric companies serving about 24 million homes and businesses...

#16 Malibu Retrofit at $300,000 Shows Limits of Wildfire-Prepping

Nov 5 2024 // Evelin Weber and her neighbors fled their Malibu homes as the deadly Woolsey Fire tore across the California coast in 2018. Ever since, haunted by fears of another blaze, she’s spent $300,000 on fireproofing her...

#17 Texas Utility Rules Didn’t Prevent Panhandle Wildfires

Mar 8 2024 // Before it burned to a pile of ashes, Melanie McQuiddy’s house on the outskirts of Canadian was her family’s home base. Her daughter and grandchildren flocked there for holidays. At Christmastime, she put a tree...

#18 How the Hot Water That Fueled Hurricane Beryl Foretells a Scary Storm Season

Jul 3 2024 // Hurricane Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm shows the literal hot water the Atlantic and Caribbean are in right now and the kind of season ahead, experts said.Beryl smashed...

#19 ‘We’re Going to Survive and It’s Going to Come Back’: A Year After Maui Wildfire, Survivors Press on

Aug 7 2024 // They have combed the ashes for mementos, worried about where they would sleep, questioned their faith and tried to find a way to grieve amid the great, unsettling devastation. Residents have faced a year of challenges,...

#20 Xcel Texas Wildfire Legal Reckoning to Take Years to Play Out

Mar 12 2024 // (Xcel Energy Inc. will likely be wrangling for years with the legal fallout from the wildfires burning through the Texas Panhandle.The experience of utility companies in California and Oregon sued over massive blazes...