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1. Critical Lines of Action for Vulnerability and Resilience Research and Practice: Lessons from the 2017 Hurricane Season

   https://doi.org/10.1142/S234573761850015X  

   Eakin, Hallie; Muñoz-Erickson, Tischa A.; Lemos, Maria Carmen (September 2018, Journal of Extreme Events)

   The unprecedented number of devastating disasters recently experienced in the United States is a clarion call to revisit how we understand our vulnerability in the face of global change, and what we are prepared to do about it. We focus on the case of Hurricane María’s impact in Puerto Rico to underscore five critical concerns in addressing vulnerability and adaptation planning: (i) vulnerability as a product of flows; (ii) how our beliefs about the capacities of ourselves and others affect local vulnerability; (iii) the role uncertainty, politics, and information access play in amplifying vulnerability and complicating adaptation; (iv) the need for a better distribution of risk and responsibility in adaptation; (v) and the challenge of seizing the opportunity of disasters for transformative change. These five issues of concern were particularly evident in the case of Puerto Rico where Hurricane María’s 155 mph winds exposed existing infrastructural vulnerabilities, institutional incapacities, and socio-economic disparities. We argue that addressing these issues requires fundamental shifts in how we prepare for environmental change and disasters in the 21st century. We discuss promising approaches that may assist researchers and practitioners in addressing some of the underlying drivers of vulnerability, stemming from cross-scalar dynamics, systemic interdependencies, and the politics and social relations associated with knowledge, decision-making and action. We argue that society needs to broach the difficult topic of the equity in the distribution of risk in society and the burden of adaptation. Addressing these challenges and response imperatives is a central task of this century; the time to act is now. 

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2. The Racializing Work of Cultural Narratives: An Analysis of Colorblind Frames of Puerto Rican Climate Migrants

   https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492231206384  

   Aranda, Elizabeth; Blackwell, Rebecca (October 2023, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity)

   Using narrative analysis, this article examines the relationship between coloniality and racializing characterizations of Puerto Ricans, on the one hand, and taken-for-granted formula stories about U.S. national identity and morality, on the other. Our analysis draws from two data sets: 21 newspaper articles published in a Florida newspaper in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria about the needs and conditions of climate migrants from Puerto Rico and 54 interviews with Puerto Rican climate migrants who relocated to Florida after the hurricane struck the archipelago in 2017. This multilevel analysis explores prevailing colorblind racism frames that circulate across levels of social life embedded in stories that appeal to cultural ways of thinking and feeling about the world. Our findings show how colorblind frames in broadly shared narratives can reinforce racial scripts and perpetuate ethnoracial inequality. They also show that the broad circulation of such narratives at cultural, institutional, and interpersonal levels renders the racialization process less discernible. 

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3. A socio-technical approach for the assessment of critical infrastructure system vulnerability in extreme weather events

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01315-7  

   Montoya-Rincon, Juan P.; Mejia-Manrique, Said A.; Azad, Shams; Ghandehari, Masoud; Harmsen, Eric W.; Khanbilvardi, Reza; Gonzalez-Cruz, Jorge E. (July 2023, Nature Energy)

   The recurrence of extreme weather events has led to the development of methods for assessing the vulnerability and interdependencies of physical and human systems. A case example is Hurricane Maria (H-Maria), where Puerto Rico experienced damage to 80% of its electrical power system, leading to massive disruptions of essential services for months. Here we evaluate the effectiveness of various interventions aimed at reducing vulnerability by considering power and water infrastructure and respective water–power dependencies while also considering the social vulnerability of affected communities associated with the physical infrastructure upgrades. On the basis of the current infrastructure configuration, we found that all communities suffered enormously from power and water outages. As one upgrade option, we show that incorporating regional energy grids would reduce outages in an H-Maria scenario. However, a large portion of disadvantaged communities will face service disruption under this option. In contrast, hardening transmission lines, as the second option, would improve service delivery and, most importantly, provide uninterrupted service to the higher portion of the vulnerable population. 

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4. Analyzing Social Media Data to Understand How Disaster-Affected Individuals Adapt to Disaster-Related Telecommunications Disruptions

   Van Wyk, Hannah; Starbird, Kate (May 2020, CoRe Paper – Social Media for Disaster Response and Resilience Proceedings of the 17th ISCRAM Conference)

   McNeill, Fiona; Zobel, Christopher (Ed.)

   Information is a critical need during disasters such as hurricanes. Increasingly, people are relying upon cellular and internet-based technology to communicate that information—modalities that are acutely vulnerable to the disruptions to telecommunication infrastructure that are common during disasters. Focusing on Hurricane Maria (2017) and its long-term impacts on Puerto Rico, this research examines how people affected by severe and sustained disruptions to telecommunications services adapt to those disruptions. Leveraging social media trace data as a window into the real-time activities of people who were actively adapting, we use a primarily qualitative approach to identify and characterize how people changed their telecommunications practices and routines—and especially how they changed their locations—to access Wi-Fi and cellular service in the weeks and months after the hurricane. These findings have implications for researchers seeking to better understand human responses to disasters and responders seeking to identify strategies to support affected populations. 

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5. Analyzing Social Media Data to Understand How Disaster-Affected Individuals Adapt to Disaster-Related Telecommunications Disruptions.

   Van Wyk, Hannah; Starbird, Kate (January 2020, International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM 2020))

   Hughes, Amanda; McNeill, Fiona; Zobel, Christopher W. (Ed.)

   Information is a critical need during disasters such as hurricanes. Increasingly, people are relying upon cellular and internet-based technology to communicate that information--modalities that are acutely vulnerable to the disruptions to telecommunication infrastructure that are common during disasters. Focusing on Hurricane Maria (2017) and its long-term impacts on Puerto Rico, this research examines how people affected by severe and sustained disruptions to telecommunications services adapt to those disruptions. Leveraging social media trace data as a window into the real-time activities of people who were actively adapting, we use a primarily qualitative approach to identify and characterize how people changed their telecommunications practices and routines--and especially how they changed their locations--to access Wi-Fi and cellular service in the weeks and months after the hurricane. These findings have implications for researchers seeking to better understand human responses to disasters and responders seeking to identify strategies to support affected populations. 

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