The U.S. emergency management and disaster response systems are desperately deficient, and cannot handle the onslaught of climate change-amplified disasters already besieging the nation. That’s the take-home message of Disasterology, the excellent 2021 book by disaster researcher Samantha Montano, assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. When homeowners, after years of delay, did manage to get a FEMA check, the Katrina average was just $7,000. Victims of Hurricane Katrina being helped by the Red Cross and other agencies inside the Houston Astrodome on September 5, 2005. “The government has failed to build an emergency management system to meet our growing needs,” Montano writes.
