WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is seeking roughly $4 billion in additional emergency funding from Congress for costs related to the collapse and repair of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore and to respond to other disasters that have occurred around the U.S. in recent months. That money is part of a new […]
Two severe weather events in May brought the number of billion-dollar disasters for the United States in 2024 up to nearly a dozen. The month began with a tornado outbreak from May 6 to May 10 that stretched across 23 states, going from South Dakota to Florida. There were 167 tornadoes confirmed, including a deadly […]
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — At the rear of Rio de Janeiro’s polluted Guanabara Bay, thousands of mangroves rise as tall as 13 feet (about 4 meters) from a previously deforested area. The 30,000 trees, planted by non-profit organization Instituto Mar Urbano over four years in the Guapimirim environmental protection area, stand as an example […]
A small tractor clears water from a business as floodwaters block a street in Barre, Vermont, in July 2023. Heavy flooding last year devastated many Vermont communities. Now, state lawmakers are backing a “climate Superfund” bill that would force fossil fuel companies to pay for climate change-caused damages based on their emissions. (Charles Krupa/The Associated […]
Editor’s Note: Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Ph.D., is an associate professor of history at Campbell University, a former merchant mariner, the host of “What’s Going on With Shipping” on YouTube and contributor to gCaptain maritime. The views expressed here are his own. View more opinion articles on CNN. The allision between the container ship MV Dali and the Francis Scott […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Roads turned to murky brown rivers, homes were swept away by strong currents and bodies were pulled from mud during deadly flash floods and landslides after torrential rains hit West Sumatra in early March, marking one of the latest deadly natural disasters in Indonesia. Government officials blamed the floods on heavy […]
Mar. 27—By Mike Klingaman — jklingaman@baltsun.com PUBLISHED:March 27, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.| UPDATED:March 27, 2024 at 9:02 p.m. June 1999: A tractor-trailer carrying an oversized load struck a pedestrian bridge over the Baltimore Beltway near Catonsville, hurling debris onto the highway, killing one motorist and seriously injuring three others. The rig’s load exceeded the maximum […]
BALTIMORE — June 1999: A tractor-trailer carrying an oversized load struck a pedestrian bridge over the Baltimore Beltway near Catonsville, hurling debris onto the highway, killing one motorist and seriously injuring three others. The rig’s load exceeded the maximum height by 3 feet. August 1989: During repairs, the Route 198 bridge over the Baltimore-Washington Parkway […]
The Federal Emergency Management Association creates a map of its National Risk Index, a measure of how vulnerable each area in the country is to different types of natural disasters. The risk index calculates the amount of damage a potential natural disaster would cause, so a densely-populated area would have a higher risk index score […]
One lesson I bet we can all remember from grade school is the water cycle. Even if you don’t recall precisely what you’d learned, you probably have memories of some sort of video or diagram that was so colorful and creative it made the day feel a little more fun. For some of us (myself […]
Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., acknowledged one of his biggest financial blunders in buying Dexter Shoe Co. in 1993. Dexter, a Maine-based shoemaker, was initially perceived as a thriving business. Buffett remarked in his 2014 letter to shareholders that he had made many mistakes but one stood out as […]
2023 was a disastrous year, and I don’t mean politically as MAGA would have you believe. Nope, Mother Nature hammered us to the tune of $92.9 billion in damages from winter and summer storms, wildfires, hurricanes, freezes, flooding and drought. The number of billion-dollar-a-year events have been rising, according to a report from the National […]