Search

How does visualizing allows us to set the parameters to make the future vision a reality?

In New Orleans, African American communities were not only hit hard by Katrina's floods, but also by violent policing during the catastrophe and a disaster "recovery" effort that was fundamentally Anti-Black (closing of publich housing and the privatization of schools and health care). Recovery efforts were not organized along ideals of racial justice that would have addressed gaps in educational and health care resources. Instead, they were imagined along neoliberal principles that systematically excluded the city's Black population. I am interested in looking into how the Anti-Blackness of Katrina "recovery" set the stage for the virulent way COVID 19 is affecting New Orleans' African American communities.

In the US Virgin Islands, Hurricanes Maria and Irma decimated what were already decrepit public school and public health systems. Public schools and hospitals had not been property repaired and remained under-supported as of early March 2020. In places like the Island of St. Croix, residents reported the hospital having only one physicial on staff, and indicated fear of misdiagnosis and prolonged waiting times kept them from seeking health care there. The clientelle of the public health system is predominantly Afro and Hispanic Caribbean. Meanwhile, US "mainlanders" (who are predominantly white) are reported to seek their healthcare off island, something only those with ample financial resources can do. Infection rates and fatality rates for the USVI seem rather low from official reports, but it is important to find out if this is because testing itself is not readily avialable in the territory.

Media coverage from hard-hit cities suggests there is a disproportionate number of arrests and citations related to enforcement of social distancing among racial minorities.

Also, police response seems to have followed very different patterns in the case of "re-open" protests and anti-police brutality protests.

The main point of the article is to show the ethical and enviromental danger inmates face on Riker Island. This is supported by the description heat emergencies that are risking lives of inmates, air pollution in the facility due to methane gas that is being produced by the landfill it was built on, and the shifting in the ground that is leading to cracking, subjecting facilities to flooding during extreme weather.

Emergency response is one of the main ideas of this article. Schmid expresses the importance of emergency response to nuclear disaster in that prevention can only go so far and in the specific case of nuclear disaster the cause is often unpredictable and unavoidable (natural cause ie. Hurricanes, tsunami). Without an appropriate emergency response system in place nuclear disasters will continue to cause significant environmental damages, infrastructure damages, and harm citizens.