Rural communities hit hard by deaths from explosion at ammunition plant in Tennessee

 Photo by Jeff Kingma, Unsplash

An explosion at a rural Tennessee ammunition plant that killed 16 people on Oct. 10 has “shaken the small, tight-knit communities in Hickman and Humphreys Counties,” Ashley Ahn reported for The New York Times.

“Witnesses said the explosion was so powerful that it rattled homes at least a dozen miles away and generated a plume of smoke large enough to register on the weather radar of a Nashville television station,” Ahn wrote.

The ammunition plant, which manufactures demolition charges and explosives, is a major contributor to the economies of rural communities in Hickman and Humphreys counties.

The police and other agencies such as the FBI are still investigating the cause of the explosion.

“You want me to be honest? It’s hell,” Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said in a press conference. “It’s hell on us. It’s hell on everybody involved.” 

For rural communities where everyone knows everybody, the devastation of the tragedy is personal. Many law enforcement officers who arrived at the scene of the explosion knew workers who were killed and families who were affected. 

And it hit hard for Davis, who had to give briefings to close friends and neighbors.

"It starts hitting me who these folks really are to me — it’s hard for me to hold that emotion,” Davis said in an interview with Emily Cochrane for The New York Times.  

Disaster-experienced rural towns offer a guide for successful recovery

The Greensburg, Kan., memorial quilt represents how 
residents pieced the town back together. (Yonder photo) 

While no rural community wants to become a blueprint for successful natural disaster recovery, smaller regions that have survived and rebuilt after a catastrophic event have developed adaptable plans and key insights that can help towns in similar situations.

When Greensburg, Kansas, was devastated by an EF5 tornado in May 2007, it inadvertently became a leader in recovery systems. "Greensburg has been rebuilt for a future that is energy efficient and disaster prepared. Its population of 750 souls is smaller than it was in 2007, but also younger on average than it was before the storm," reports Anne Vilen of The Daily Yonder.

Greensburg Mayor Matt Christenson has developed a clear outline of disaster recovery stages that span from the initial aftermath to decades later. He told Vilen, "The first stage is rescue and recovery, trying to minimize loss of life. Then, after that, it’s assessing the damage. . . . A couple of years in. . . you get onto permanent construction. . . . Never stay where you’re at. Always aim for better.”

Swannanoa, N.C., was battered by Hurricane Helene in 2024, but the town has rallied to rebuild, and its residents echo much of Greensburg's advice. Local leaders from Greensburg and Sawnnanoa agree that the "most important ingredient in disaster recovery is trusting, listening to, and helping neighbors connect with one another," Vilen writes.

Another insight both regions share is ensuring that residents know their vital needs, such as food, lodging, and medical care, will be addressed. Vilen reports, "It’s essential to provide the things that residents will need in order to stay and continue to be part of the recovery effort."

Residents working through disaster recovery deal with a host of unfamiliar noises and messes that can be likened to living in a construction zone. Town leaders from Swannanoa say that keeping some town traditions alive during long periods of recovery offer the community time to celebrate successes together, as well as comfort in the familiar.

Both regions emphasize that for sustained recovery to occur, towns must hire and pay people to design and execute rebuilding plans. Vilen reports, "Volunteers burn out. Long-term systems and positions that sustain effective work over time are essential for long-term recovery."

North Carolina’s losses from Hurricane Helene offer lessons on emergency planning for inland communities

Hurricane Helene pummeled counties across six
states. (Adobe Stock photo)

 

Despite weather reports giving starkly accurate descriptions of the extreme risks Hurricane Helene posed as it barreled through North Carolina toward Yancey County, many of the county's residents remained unaware of the imminent danger. Jennifer Berry Hawes and Mollie Simon of ProPublica report, "The highest per capita death toll occurred in Yancey County, a rural expanse in the rugged Black Mountains devastated by flash flooding and landslides."

Yancey County residents were in Helene's violent path but didn't know it. ProPublica reports, "No one in Yancey received evacuation orders — and many, including those living in high-risk areas and caring for young children and frail older people, didn’t flee because they didn’t see clearer signs of urgency from the county."

Helene's wrath left at least 230 people dead across six states. Its trail of destruction in Yancey County left the community in ruin, families with untold losses, and a list of hard-won lessons. If storms can "make trees grow deeper roots," ProPublica has five takeaways to help regions prepare before extreme weather strikes again.

Even if your community is inland, develop storm warning education and planning. If there are internal barriers to evacuations, discussions can happen before an emergency. "Yancey’s emergency manager, Jeff Howell, told us he doubted the county commissioners would support issuing orders or that local residents would heed them given the area’s culture of self-reliance and disdain for government mandates, especially regarding property rights," ProPublica reports. "But some Yancey residents said they would have left or at least prepared better."

Use direct and honest disaster messaging across all possible channels. "With Helene closing in, officials in rural Yancey were among those who used less-direct wording. In Facebook posts, they asked residents to 'please prepare to move to higher ground as soon as you are able,'" Hawes and Simon write. "In one post, they softened the message, adding, 'This information is not to frighten anyone.' Many [Yancey survivors] told us that in retrospect they were looking for clearer directives from their leaders."

When it comes to training local emergency managers, consider following the lead of other states. "North Carolina does not require training for local emergency managers," Hawes and Simon add. "Florida recently enacted a law mandating minimum training, experience and education for its counties’ emergency managers starting in 2026. Georgia requires its emergency managers to get the state’s emergency management certification within six months."

Build landslide awareness, even if mapping hasn't been completed. "North Carolina began examining landslide risks by county, but powerful interests stood in the way," Hawes and Simon explain. "More than 20 years ago, North Carolina legislators passed a law requiring that landslide hazards be mapped across 19 mountain counties." When real estate and land developers pushed against the mapping program, lawmakers cut its funding and staff.

Ask for a 360 review. North Carolina hasn't issued any foundational review of "lessons learned" from Helene. "As North Carolina figures out how to direct millions of dollars in rebuilding aid, there has so far been no state inquiry into the preparedness of local areas — or what could better equip them for the next unprecedented storm," ProPublica reports. For now, the state seems more focused on rebuilding.

In flood-torn Appalachia, building or rebuilding housing is a complex problem with a long history

Percentage of renters considered housing cost-burdened.
(The Conversation map, from U.S. Census 2023 data)

As parts of Appalachia are left ravaged by more than one “thousand-year flood," residents remain in their communities, but many people still can't find housing or rebuild, writes Kristina P. Brant for The Conversation. "The floods have highlighted the resilience of local people to work together for collective survival in rural Appalachia. But they have also exposed the deep vulnerability of communities, many of which are located along creeks at the base of hills and mountains with poor emergency warning systems."

Persistent poverty, a lack of decent housing and a history of unequal land ownership leave many Appalachian residents with few options when faced with a natural disaster. Brant explains, "When I first moved to eastern Kentucky in 2016, I was struck by the grave lack of affordable, quality housing. I met families paying $200-$300 a month for a small plot to put a mobile home. Others lived in 'found housing' – often-distressed properties owned by family members."

Eastern Kentucky’s 2021 and 2022 floods "turned this into a full-blown housing crisis, with 9,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the 2022 flood alone," Brant writes. "With a dearth of affordable rentals pre-flood, renters who lost their homes had no place to go. And those living in 'found housing' were not eligible for federal support for rebuilding."

Corporations own large tracts of Appalachian land that could be used for housing, but the property remains undeveloped. Other large parcels are "owned by families with deep roots in the region. People’s attachment to a place often makes them want to stay in their communities, even after disasters," Brant adds. "But it can also limit the amount of land available for rebuilding. People are often hesitant to sell land that holds deep significance for their families, even if they are not living there themselves."

Even after major government funding was secured to rebuild on "higher ground" after the 2022 flood the extreme housing shortage continues. Brandt writes, "When I conducted interviews during the summer and fall of 2024, many of the mobile home communities that were decimated in the 2022 flood had begun to fill back up. These were flood-risk areas, but there was simply no other place to go."

When electrical companies shut off electricity for wildfire prevention, nursing homes can be caught unaware

Nursing homes are often forgotten during emergencies.
(Adobe Stock photo)

As climate change worsens extreme weather, some electric companies are opting to cut power as a wildfire prevention tool. The loss of electricity to entire regions, sometimes with little notice, has left some nursing home facilities scrambling for power during inclement weather.

With the increasing prevalence of preemptive power cuts, "nursing homes are being forced to evaluate their preparedness," reports Kate Ruder for KFF Health News. "But it shouldn't be up to the facilities alone, according to industry officials and academics: Better communication between utilities and nursing homes, and including the facilities in regional disaster preparedness plans, is critical to keep residents safe."

In the country's western half, nursing homes are particularly vulnerable and less likely to be prepared. "More than half of the nursing homes are within 3.1 miles of an area with elevated wildfire risk, according to a study published last year," Ruder explains. "Yet, nursing homes with the greatest risk of fire danger in the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest had poorer compliance with federal emergency preparedness standards than their lower-risk counterparts."

While the federal government mandates that nursing facilities have disaster preparedness plans, those plans don't always "include contingencies for public safety power shut-offs, which have increased in the past five years but are still relatively new," Ruder reports. "And nursing homes in the West are rushing to catch up."

Debra Saliba, director the University of California's Anna and Harry Borun Center for Gerontological Research, said "making sure nursing homes are part of [broader] emergency response plans could help them respond effectively to any kind of power outage," Ruder writes. "Too often, nursing homes are forgotten during emergencies because they are not seen by government agencies or utilities as health care facilities, like hospitals or dialysis centers, Saliba added.'"

Landline use might be fading, but many rural residents still rely on it during power outages and emergencies

Landlines don't go down during power
outages. (Photo by A. Spratt, Unsplash)

When emergencies strike in remote areas, the unreliability of cell phone and broadband services can become a stark reality, which is why many rural residents want to keep their landlines. "The number of landline users has plummeted, and providers are looking at transitioning customers to cellphones or home telephone service over broadband connections," reports Heather Kelly for The Washington Post. "But for millions of people, newer alternatives are either unavailable, too expensive, or are unreliable when it matters most: in an emergency."

Because landline phones use copper lines to transfer electricity, "as long as a phone is corded or charged, it will work during a power outage," Kelly explains. "Landlines are unaffected by power outages, making them a necessary backstop in rural areas. Many of those same areas have inadequate cellular or internet coverage."

Enumclaw in King County, Wash., sits in
the shadowof Mt. Rainier. (Wikipedia map)

About a quarter of Americans still have a landline, but far fewer rely on it for daily use. "The largest group of people holding onto their landlines are 65 and older," Kelly reports. "Susan Reiter has had a landline in her Enumclaw, Wash., home since 1978. The power goes out multiple times a year, says Reiter, usually caused by fierce wind and other weather events. But the landline always works, she says, making it her best option if there's an emergency and she needs to call 911."

AT&T is one company looking to cut costs by cutting landline service. It asked the California Public Utilities Commission to "end its obligation to provide landline service in parts of the state," Kelly adds. "Hundreds of California residents called into CPUC public meetings. . . .The vast majority said maintaining landline service was a safety issue, citing power outages, wildfires and floods as times when their landlines are the only way to reach 911 or get information on evacuations."

As calling options evolve, replacing landlines as an emergency stopgap seems possible; however, getting people to trust newer technology may be tricky. "Apple added a satellite-connected emergency response service to the iPhone 14 in 2022," Kelly reports. "For people with a landline they've had for decades, the promise of new technology doesn't compete with the security of something that has worked for so long."

Extreme weather and extremely high insurance rates may have to go together as insurers try to manage losses

At least 26 deadly tornadoes hit the U.S. in 2023.
(NOAA artist rendering, Unsplash)

After catastrophic losses from extreme weather and wildfires, insurance companies asked for significant increases in auto and home insurance rates, but state regulators told them no. Insurers like Allstate went to the "nuclear option," reports Jean Eaglesham of The Wall Street Journal. The company threatened to "stop renewing auto insurance for customers in three states that hadn't given in to its demands, which would have left those policyholders scrambling for coverage. . . . The states blinked. New Jersey approved auto rate increases for Allstate averaging 17%, and New York, a 15% hike."

Ten years ago, getting auto and home insurance was generally affordable. That's no longer the case for many Americans. Eaglesham writes, "Homeowners and drivers are facing sharply rising premiums, less coverage and fewer, if any, choices of insurer. In some places, the only options are bare-bones coverage or none at all. That can make homes worth less and harder to sell, and cars less affordable."

With insurers coming off of some of their worst years on record, along with the unpredictable costs of nature's calamities, insurance expenses are not likely to come down. Eaglesham reports, "The past decade of global natural catastrophes has been the costliest ever. Warmer temperatures have made storms worse and contributed to droughts that have elevated wildfire risk."

Barry Gilway, a 52-year veteran of the industry who retired in 2023 as head of Florida's Citizens Property Insurance, a state-created insurer of last resort that sells plans to people who can't get coverage elsewhere, told Eaglesham, "I have never seen the overall market this bad."

For consumers, shopping around, if possible, offers one panacea. "Nancy Piel, who lives Lake Forest, Ill., a Chicago suburb, contacted three agents last year after Nationwide increased the cost of insuring her two homes and 2011 minivan to $18,000," Eaglesham reports. "According to one agent, Chubb quoted even more: $29,000. She ended up insuring with Cincinnati Insurance for $10,500. The coverages were all very similar, she said."

States that have been deserted "by many big insurers are trying to tempt companies back by making it harder for policyholders to sue them," Eaglesham explains. "Despite some concessions from regulators, insurers are bracing for a tough future. Allstate Chief Executive Tom Wilson said that everywhere in the country is at some risk from increasingly severe weather. 'There is no place that's safe,' he said, 'and no place that's not going to be impacted.'"

Rural vote shift helped re-elect Ky.'s Democratic governor

When the Democratic governor of one of the nation's more rural and Donald Trump-voting states was re-elected last week, rural voters were a major piece of it.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear carried few rural counties, but he got 43.3 percent of the rural vote, a big improvement (5.9%) over the 40.9% he got in 2019, says an analysis by The Daily Yonder.

Daily Yonder/Datawrapper graph, adapted by The Rural Blog; click on it to enlarge

That added much to his 52.5% of the total vote, because voters in rural counties made up 38% of the total, more than any other category in the Yonder analysis. Beshear's next biggest gain was in midsized metropolitan areas (5.3%), then major metros (2.9%), midsize-metro suburbs (2.6%), major-metro suburbs (1.4%) and small metros (1.1%).

Beshear defeated Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron by 5 percentage points. In 2019, he beat GOP incumbnent Matt Bevin by 0.4 points. In 2020, Trump carried the state by 26 points.

"Beshear won 17 of Kentucky’s 85 rural (nonmetropolitan) counties this year, compared to 13 in 2019," the Yonder's Tim Marema notes. "The governor’s handling of the catastrophic 2022 flood in Eastern Kentucky may have been a factor with some voters. The disaster killed 45 people and destroyed and damaged thousands of homes in East Kentucky. The seven counties that gave Beshear his largest percentage-point increase compared to 2019 were all affected by the flooding. Two of the hardest hit, Letcher and Perry, flipped from Republican to Democratic. Beshear lost those counties by 9 points in 2019. After recovery efforts that included several gubernatorial visits, Beshear won Letcher by 5 points and Perry by 11."

In the shadow of the coal industry, the Mountain Valley Pipeline runs into resistance in Appalachia

The Daily Yonder graphic

The long relationship between Appalachian people and energy industry representatives was barely forged before it started to fracture due to misrepresentation and unscrupulous contracts pushed by coal representatives, reports Hannah Wilson-Black of The Daily Yonder. More recently, Mountain Valley Pipeline representatives have come calling, and wiser Appalachians are not all-in for their contracts or pipeline.

"When speculators and early corporations first came to the hollers of Central Appalachia's coal country in the late 1800s, they wanted to buy landowners' mineral rights — not the rights to their farmland, but to the coal underneath," Wilson-Black writes. "Knowing that these landowners were subsistence farmers who had little money and were not fluent in legal language or the going price of coal, the land agents offered to buy mineral rights for as little as fifty cents an acre. Or, as West Virginian community organizer Maury Johnson put it, for 'a little bit of nothing and a Christmas turkey.'"

MVP representatives first approached West Virginia and southwest Virginia landowners in 2014, "seeking 'right-of-way' easement agreements that would allow the pipeline to go through private property without requiring purchase of the land itself. Johnson, a resident of Monroe County, was one such landowner," Wilson-Black reports. "An analyst sent by the company asked to survey his farm, and Johnson agreed — with the stipulation that he accompany the surveyors. . . . Johnson claimed that when he followed the surveyors around, he watched them omit the existence of springs or dangerous karst formations on his property in their reports, and said the surveyors would only note the geographic obstacles when he drew attention to them."

Sunset in Monroe County, W.Va., one of the counties the MVP
pipeline passes through. (Photo by Hannah Wilson-Black)

Johnson and Arietta DuPre, who also lives in Monroe County, told Wilson-Black that MVP representatives employed some of the same undervalue-offer tactics coal companies used years ago. Johnson told her: "A lot of people, they've never dealt with this. They don't know what they're doing. I didn't know what I was doing. They [MVP representatives] say, 'We'll give you X amount of dollars, this is the best you're going to get."

Johnson found a way to protect his property. Wilson-Black reports, "He retained an eminent domain attorney who negotiated a higher price for his easement based on 'real impacts to the property,' as he put it. This allowed him to avoid a protracted — and expensive — court battle with MVP. He was also able to stipulate, through his final contract, which crops or chemicals MVP must use to restore the land."

As the pipeline build continues, landslides and explosions remain a top concern to residents who fear a repeat of the Leach XPress Pipeline explosion in Marshall County, West Virginia, where "a fireball burned for several hours after an 83-foot section of the pipeline burst into flames, releasing more than $430,000 worth of natural gas," Brittany Patterson reported for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Land shift was blamed for the explosion, which left a crater in the ground and a stark reality burned into Appalachian communities.

Forest Service creates tools to give rural towns a better chance at wildfire resiliency grants; Oct. 31 next deadline

Smoke plume from Cal-Wood fire near Boulder, Colo.
(Photo by Malachi Brooks, Unsplash)

Rural communities looking to shore up financing wildfire prevention projects may have an improved chance of gaining grant dollars during the second application window of a federal grant program. The application period is open until Oct. 31, reports Claire Carlson of The Daily Yonder. Smaller communities often lack the capacity, such as additional staffing or grant expertise, to apply for and win grants despite their need for assistance.

Applying for a grant means communities must gather and supply data, which takes time smaller staff may not have. To combat this obstacle, the Forest Service has piloted the Community Wildfire Defense Grants Tool, which calculates the wildfire risk of every U.S. county. "The tool shows whether the county is considered low-income and has had any previous disasters, and if it’s ‘underserved’ as defined by the federally managed Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool,” Carlson writes. Using the grant tool helps communities focus on getting and organizing data with few frustrations and fewer labor hours.

A second strategy deploys "'community navigators,' which are organizations that work directly with underserved communities to identify funding opportunities and help them through the grant application process," Carlson explains. "The navigators will also train community leaders to do this work on their own in the future." 

Grants requiring matching dollars from local coffers have kept poorer, more rural areas from accessing federal money, but waivers are an option. "Match waivers will be made available for communities that are underserved as defined by the Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool or are nationally recognized tribes or Pacific Islands communities," Carlson adds. "The grant program is giving up to $250,000 to each community to develop wildfire protection plans and up to $10 million to each community to implement wildfire resiliency projects."

The CWDG calls for "community wildfire protection plans to focus on community-wide efforts to decrease wildfire risk, like improving emergency communications or identifying water sources," Carlson reports. "A comprehensive toolkit on how to create a community wildfire protection plan can be found here. For more information and access to the application, visit the Forest Service’s website."

911 began when 'every household had a landline;' times have changed, but many emergency call centers haven't

911 service began in some places in 1968.
(Photo by Marissa Lewis, Unsplash)

Think everyone has switched to cellular? Think again. "Some 911 centers are still struggling to modernize their communications infrastructure—the result of funding scarcity and hesitation over the high stakes of making changes," reports Isabelle Bousquette of The Wall Street Journal. "But the continued use of legacy systems, installed when pay phones dotted city corners and every household had a landline, has led to a host of challenges for call-center operators, including misrouted calls, potentially increasing response times. U.S. regulators have estimated that as many as 10,000 lives could be saved every year by reducing 911 response times by just one minute."

The U.S. has roughly 5,700 primary and secondary public-safety answering points that respond to 911 calls, and most are "locally funded and operated, and have each taken their own path toward modernization. Overall progress has been slow," Bousquette writes. Patrick Lustig, an Oregon Department of Emergency Management member, told her: "We're using 35-year-old technology today to deliver 911 calls. Everything else has changed except the 911 system."

In 2004, the National Emergency Number Association, a nonprofit group, "came up with the vision for a 'Next Generation 911' center, which could fully take advantage of modern capabilities," Bousquette reports. NENA's goal is to move away from the old systems that "only supports voice communication to an internet-based network, capable of receiving various types of digital data, including more accurate caller location information. . . .By the end of 2022, deployments of Next Generation 911 technology covered about 56.2% of the U.S. population, according to consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. . . . For the remaining 43.8% of the population, it could be several more years. . . . Meanwhile, theyare left to contend with the limitations of their decades-old systems."

The two systems do not work well together because landlines are tied to unique geographic addresses, and cell-phone locations link to towers, resulting in emergency callers waiting to be transferred. "NENA estimates 27 million calls on legacy systems are misrouted annually, wasting precious time as the operator then has to transfer the caller to the appropriate center. . . . according to Lynne Houserman, a vice president at Motorola Solutions, a provider of services to 911 centers," Bousquette explains. "The call is then routed to a 911 center based on a decades-old database linking cell sites with call center locations. . . . But cell site boundaries are imprecise and sometimes fall within multiple 911 centers jurisdictions—meaning calls aren’t always routed to the nearest one, she said."

Inaccurate call routing isn't the only limitation. "About 40% to 45% of the country’s 911 centers still can’t accept texts, according to NENA, which described texting as critical in sensitive situations, including domestic violence incidents, as well as for the hearing-impaired," Bousquette reports. "With a Next Generation 911 network, texting is automatically enabled, Houserman said, although there are also some interim ways to make it work without the full network."

Because 911 is not a national service, funding remains the main obstacle to change. Aleisha Rucker-Wright, deputy executive director of the Georgia Emergency Communications Authority, "said the state’s ECA has been working to educate policymakers and stakeholders on Next Generation 911. She tells them things like: 'If you call and you order delivery, or you call for an Uber, they know exactly where to come to find you. … Our current 911 system, unfortunately, is not able to find you.'"

Maui fires point up special needs of rural areas; governor says catastrophe will change the way the world looks at fire

UPDATE, Aug. 15: The Los Angeles Times has a visual representation of the fire's spread.

Several fires struck Maui, but the worst was in Lahaina, on its
northwest coast. (San Francisco Chronicle image; click to enlarge)

The wildfires on Maui, America's deadliest in the last 150 years, will change the way the world looks at fire, and point up the special needs of rural areas, officials in Hawaii said over the weekend.

"This is rural America. Rural America is getting hit by these types of climate-change chaoses; every single day, it's a disaster," U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, D-Hawai'i, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday. Asked about the Federal Emergency Management Agency's need for more billions of dollars, she said, "Rural America, which is what Hawaii is, faces a crisis of also being able to get those first responders and support as fast as they need to, to be able to respond in those situations, so we have to make sure FEMA has the tools and the resources to execute support back home at Hawai'i, but quite frankly, this is goiong to be happening across the country and they need the money to be able to respond wherever disaster strikes."

Gov. Josh Green told reporters, "This is the first time we've ever experienced a wildfire in the context of these dry conditions, global warming and and with a hurricane that's just passing us. There's no question this catastrophe is gonna change the way everyone look at fire across the globe."

Local officials said Tuesday, Aug. 8, that a fire in and around Lahaina, pop. 12,000, was “100% contained,” but it flared up that afternoon, the Los Angeles Times reports: "The threat of wildfires had been well known for days, with the National Weather Service warning Aug. 4 of 'high fire danger,' given the dry weather and 'strong and gusty trade winds'."

The Washington Post has a "tick-tock" of the fire through survivors' experienes, with this description of how teh fire resurged: "Overhead, dry air — the result of a high-pressure system — was jetting over and down the slopes of the volcano, sending ferocious winds into his town, spraying gravel and ripping shingles off the rooftops. It was a worst-case scenario that some emergency planners had long warned about."

"Hawaii has a network of outdoor sirens, but neither the state nor the county activated them Tuesday, said a spokesman for the state’s Emergency Management Agency," the Times reports. "Officials instead issued alerts through three methods — cellular phones, a local notification system, and alerts on radio and television — but power and telecommunications outages appeared to have limited their reach."

Tokuda said, "We had no cell coverage or electricity in some of these areas . . . with how fast this burn was ... you would not know what the crisis was" if you heard a siren, and islanders' first instinct is that it is a tsunami: "You would run towards land, which in this case would be towards fire."  The Post notes, "Two residents filed a lawsuit seeking class action Saturday against the state’s electric utility, which faces scrutiny for not shutting down power when dangerous winds were predicted. . . . Hawaii’s attorney general announced Friday that her office would examine the policies and key decisions that influenced the response to the deadly inferno." UPDATE, Aug. 16: The Washington Post reports, "Power lines likely caused Maui’s first reported fire, video and data show."

The Maui News says in an editorial, "Make no mistake, Lahaina will rise from the ashes on the shoulders of its people. Those proud Lunas will not be alone, for this island, state and country are ready to help. Stay strong, Lahaina. We are with you." Former Maui Times editor Anthony Pignataro has a tribute to Lahaina.

Railroad employee, working solo, got warnings but says he was too busy to notice before derailment; safety bill stalls

Aerial view of the deliberate burning of hazardous vinyl chloride
(Columbiana County commissioners photo from NTSB via ABC)

One employee watching 19,500 miles of track could have prevented Norfolk Southern Corp.'s February train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, but he says he was distracted by other trains and failed to see  warnings that a wheel bearing was heating up and would fail, reports Darrel Rowland of ABC News: "He wasn't even looking at the readings from defect detectors along the tracks on the bearing, suspected by the National Transportation Safety Board of causing the fiery crash in East Palestine."

Gary Rambo, automatic train-control analyst for the Atlanta-based railroad, told NTSB investigators "he was monitoring other Norfolk Southern trains at the same time," Rowland reports. "Thus, he didn't notice a 'trending alert' from the wayside defect detector showing a spike of 103 degrees in the bearing of doomed train 32N in Ohio. . . . He said, 'Honestly, I didn't see it when it first came in. There were three other trains I was working on.'"

"Rambo said he didn't know for sure the train had derailed until he heard from the chief dispatcher's office that 'We got a lot of cars on the ground' and 'They're on fire,'" Rowland reports. "He told investigators that on the day of the crash, he – as usual – was working solo on a 12-hour shift, attempting to monitor from home all the company's trains on 19,500 miles of track in the eastern U.S. . . . He said he did not even have a scheduled lunch break or time to use the bathroom as he tried to keep up with an average of 300 alerts per shift. . . . Rambo said two persons used to work the shift until Norfolk Southern staff cutbacks a few years ago."

Should Rambo had noticed the warning, he may not have acted, Rowland writes: "The temperature fell just short of the railroad's threshold to stop the train – although whether someone like Rambo could have asked for a halt due to the rapid temperature rise remains unclear. . . . Critics say the nothing-to-see-here stance of Norfolk Southern on a crucial element of the derailment provides just one indicator of how hard it's proving to bring real change on rail safety as we approach the six-month anniversary of the crash where 38 cars from the 1.75-mile-long train derailed in East Palestine, including 11 with toxic materials that first responders had difficulty identifying."

Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown (D) and J.D. Vance are pushing a bill to create more rail safeguards. The Senate Commerce Committee approved it in May, and a handful of other "Trump-aligned conservatives have signed onto the effort, but party leaders on both sides believe the legislation in its current form lacks enough GOP support to clear the 60-vote threshold" in the Senate, Punchbowl News reports. "The problem for most Republicans is that the bill goes too far in imposing new regulations on the industry.”

Joe Perticone of The Bulwark’s “Press Pass” reports, “The bill’s fortunes started shifting around the same time that the Norfolk Southern Corp.” political-action committee “was cutting big checks to PACs and members of Congress whose positions made them critical to the bill’s fate.“

Double floods and no help from FEMA or their rich state have left these Appalachian residents feeling abandoned

Buchanan County is closer to eight other state capitals
than Richmond. (OpenStreet map by The Washington Post)

Saved by trees and one another, citizens in Buchanan County, Virginia, were hit with violent flash floods about a year apart, leaving homes and lives in rubble. Residents were denied Federal Emergency Management Agency aid, based on "a complicated formula that makes it harder for people in poor communities to qualify for help than those in wealthier ones," reports Laura Vozzella of The Washington Post. "An issue nationwide that the agency's own advisory council criticized as part of a broader study in 2020."

The denial from FEMA, and lack of help from the state, left some people with nothing, Vozzella reports: "Renter Tim Stiltner, who barely escaped the second flood in July 2022, with his wife and two sons, one of them in a wheelchair, was denied government aid even though his family lost everything." Stiltner said, "All we got out with was what we had on."

Residents feel abandoned by systems that are supposed to help all but disfavor the poor. "FEMA partly based its decision on a dollars-and-cents calculation. . . . The agency figures that states have the wherewithal to help individuals unless the total value of properties lost is enormous," Vozzella explains. "To residents of Buchanan, though, FEMA's math does not add up: Why would the feds rather bail out the owners of posh beach homes lost to hurricanes, they wonder, than poor mountain people wiped out by floods?" Sen. Travis Hackworth (R), who grew up in Buchanan and represents the area in Richmond, told Vozzella,"The person with the $3 million home probably has the resources to go somewhere and get additional lodging more than someone with a $30,000 or $50,000 home—and that's literally all they have."

Remains of homes sit after they were destroyed by flooding
in August 2021. (Photo by Justin Ide, The Washington Post)

The Commonwealth of Virginia has the money to help Buchanan County. Ranked among the nation's 10 richest states, "it happens to be awash in black ink, wrapping up the last fiscal year with revenue that exceeded estimates by $5 billion," Vozella reports. But the state is gridlocked in a budget dispute. "Whenever it's approved, that money will be for homeowners only. State funding for flood-prevention programs is wrapped up in divisive climate politics. . . . Sen. Tim Kaine (D) secured $1.5 million in the draft Senate appropriations bill for the Appalachian Service Project, a nonprofit that has been helping renters as well as homeowners rebuild in Buchanan. But the final bill has yet to pass. Unless or until that money comes through, most renters will be left to their own frayed bootstraps."

For a county with back-to-back floods, there is a thin silver lining of disaster preparedness. The county "set up a long-range rebuilding committee after the first flood and was able to quickly expand its mission to cover the second, said Butch Meredith, construction manager for the Baptist General Association of Virginia, which is coordinating repairs to homes that can be salvaged." Meredith said: "When Hurley happened, it took two months before any repairs started. When Whitewood happened, it took less than seven days."

Mountain Eagle editor and reporter win Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by Kentuckians

Reporter Sam Adams,  left,  and Editor-Publisher Ben Gish hold the first two of the six weekly, free-circulation editions of The Mountain Eagle that were published after the record flood in southeastern Kentucky one year ago this week.

Ben Gish and Sam Adams of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., which set a new standard for disaster coverage by a weekly newspaper after last year's flood in southeastern Kentucky, are the winners of the 2023 Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by Kentuckians.

The award is given by the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, publisher of The Rural Blog. It will be presented Oct. 26 at their annual Al Smith Awards Dinner in Lexington, with Susan Page of USA Today as the keynote speaker.

Ben Gish is editor and publisher of The Mountain Eagle, which became known for overcoming adversity to provide outstanding rural journalism in 50-plus years of ownership by his parents, Tom and Pat Gish, who died in 2008 and 2014, respectively. Sam Adams is the paper's reporter and did most of the coverage of the flood that devastated much of Letcher County and Kentucky counties downstream on the night of July 27-28, 2022.

"The Eagle's comprehensive coverage of the flood and its aftermath is an amazingly broad and deep example of public service through community journalism," said Al Cross, director of the institute and extension professor of journalism at UK. "So is the newspaper's decision, in the six weeks after the flood, to forgo the $1 charge for its single-copy sales, which constitute most of its circulation."

SPJ Bluegrass Chapter President Tom Martin said, "The Mountain Eagle, in its continued reporting of developments pertaining to the flood of '22, has served as a reminder of the vital nature of a genuine, independent community newspaper. The paper's reporting on post-flood decision-making by local officials, debris cleanup, the relocation of survivors to higher ground homes, as well as efforts of neighbors lending helping hands to neighbors has reached well beyond the borders of Letcher County, Kentucky." Martin produces “Eastern Standard” for WEKU-FM, which worked with the Eagle on its “Rise Eastern Kentucky” series after the flood.

The Eagle was nominated by Dee Davis, founder and director of the nonprofit Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg, who wrote, "After initial stories about the devastation, the paper dug into the short- and intermediate-term response to the flood: temporary shelter for the displaced, the performance of debris-removal contractors, the complexities of FEMA aid, and more. The newspaper’s exemplary journalism has informed the county and held political leaders accountable for their response to the flood."

Adams, a native of Letcher County and a University of Kentucky graduate, began working for the Eagle in 1986. He has been environment writer at The Daily Independent in Ashland, assistant city editor of the Messenger-Inquirer in Owensboro, and a freelancer; his essay, “Appalachia: Gathered at the River” appears in Water in Kentucky: Natural History, Communities, and Conservation, published by the University Press of Kentucky.

The award recognizes not only Adams' flood coverage, but Gish's preservation of his parents' legacy. The Eagle has continued to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, who sometimes strike back, as certain political interests did the day before the 2008 election, when they bought or stole most of the that week's single copies from newsstands. The Eagle has closely followed the plight of coal miners with black-lung disease, railed against coal companies and their regulators after mine disasters, defended immigrants from political attacks, and showed the promise of using reclaimed strip mines for animal agriculture.

Soon after he graduated from UK, Gish started "Speak Your Piece," a weekly feature in which readers could have their say anonymously in a county where intimidation is common. Some journalistic purists frowned on that, but Gish said "Politics can be rough here, and some politicians give letter-writers a hard time. In the early 1970s, police beat up the kids of parents who wrote letters criticizing police brutality. Or someone wrote a letter criticizing the coal industry or a politician and their family members would lose their jobs." Also in the 1970s, the Eagle's office was torched, and a Whitesburg policeman was found responsible.

Al Smith, 1927-2021

The Al Smith Award is named for the late Albert P. Smith Jr., who was the driving force for creation of the Institute, headed its advisory board and was its chair emeritus until his death in 2021. He published newspapers in Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, was founding producer and host of KET’s “Comment on Kentucky,” and federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission. He was the first winner of the award, in 2011.

The award will be presented at the Al Smith Awards Dinner Oct. 26 at the Embassy Suites Lexington on Newtown Pike, near Interstate 64/75. Winners of the Institute’s national Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, to be announced soon, will also be recognized at the event, along with winners of chapter scholarships and Institute fellowships.

Besides Smith, previous winners of the Smith Award, and their affiliations at the time, are:
2012: Jennifer P. Brown, Kentucky New Era; and Max Heath, Landmark Community Newspapers
2013: John Nelson, Danville Advocate-Messenger
2014: Bill Bishop and Julie Ardery, The Daily Yonder
2015: Carl West, The (Frankfort) State Journal
2016: Sharon Burton, Adair County Community Voice and The Farmer’s Pride
2017: Ryan Craig, Todd County Standard, and the late Larry Craig, Green River Republican
2018: Stevie Lowery, The Lebanon Enterprise
2019: David Thompson, Kentucky Press Association
2020: Becky Barnes, The Cynthiana Democrat
2021: WKMS News, Murray State University

2022: Chris and Allison Evans, The Crittenden Press

Vermont town’s lessons from 2011 flood reflected in less damage last week; 'tree huggers' became 'culvert huggers'

The town of Bethel, Vermont, is in the center of the watershed of the White River, which empties into the Connecticut River at White River Junction, Vt., and West Lebanon, N.H. (Google map, adapted by The Rural Blog; to enlarge, click on it.)

Bethel, Vermont, has seen more than its share of heavy rainfall, and its hard-won lessons of the past helped it weather last week's flooding with less damage, reports Frances Mize of the Valley News in West Lebanon, N.H., and White River Junction, Vt.

"The town has learned the hard way how to buckle down during a big storm," Mize writes. "In August 2011, Bethel incurred over $5 million in damage to public infrastructure during Tropical Storm Irene, the most of any town in the state, according to data from the state. . . . Monday, seven inches of rain fell on Bethel, adding to an already swollen White River. . . . While road damage required rescues and paperwork, other infrastructure in town made it soundly through the storm. The Bethel septic system was totally submerged on Monday night. But due to upgrades made to the system after it failed during Irene, it was able to come back online."

The region has made precipitation preparedness a priority. "As the waters recede, similar stories of bridges and roads that held out are being told across the Upper Valley" of the Connecticut River, Mize writes. "In Irene, around 1,000 culverts failed across Vermont, according to the state. . . . The state now requires culverts, when they fail or when they are built afresh, to be constructed at bank-full width, which is the height of water right before it jumps its banks." Mary Russ, executive director of the White River Partnership, told Mize: “Those newer structures are passing these flows. The roads aren’t washing away, the houses next door aren’t washing away, cemeteries aren’t washing away. Bad things happen when those structures blow. . . . Before Irene, we were tree huggers. Now we’re culvert huggers.”

"Vermont is seeing 300% more precipitation than what would normally fall this time of year, Russ said. But over the past eight years, Vermont has also weathered historic drought," Mize reports. "Around Route 14, in parts of Royalton, Bethel and Randolph, the First and Second Branch valleys of the White River — where agricultural fields and forested land follow the waterway — flooded over. . . . Rudi Ruddell, a watershed scientist with the White River Partnership, said it sounds menacing, but it means that floodplains are working. . . . Russ said recognizing its vulnerable position in the watershed, Bethel has been proactive in leveraging open space as flood mitigation." She told Mize: “Talking to colleagues and community members in the upper reaches of the watershed, they said it worked amazingly well in this flood. And we’re not looking at another million-dollar bond to protect the roads.”

Vt. flood shows it can happen anywhere; more information, planning and help is needed, especially in rural areas

Main Street in Barre, Vt., remained covered with floodwater
and mud. (Photo by Hilary Swift, The New York Times)

"This week's flooding in Vermont, in which heavy rainfall caused destruction even miles from any river, is evidence of an especially dangerous climate threat: Catastrophic flooding can increasingly happen anywhere, with almost no warning," report Christopher Flavelle and Rick Rojas of The New York Times. "The idea that anywhere it can rain, it can flood, is not new. But rising temperatures make the problem worse: They allow the air to hold more moisture, leading to more intense and sudden rainfall, seemingly out of nowhere. And the implications of that shift are enormous. . . . The United States, experts warn, is nowhere close to ready for that threat."

Federal flood maps, which are often inaccurate, have been used "as a guide to determine where to build housing and infrastructure," the Times reports, but the country lacks "a comprehensive, current, national precipitation database that could help inform homeowners, communities and the government about the rising risks from heavy rains. In Vermont, the true number of homes at risk from flooding is three times as much as what federal flood maps show, according to data from the First Street Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit research group. . . . That so-called 'hidden risk' is staggeringly high in other parts of the country as well. In Utah, the number of properties at risk when accounting for rainfall is eight times as much as what appears on federal flood maps, according to First Street."

Flash flooding "often brings tragedy to places that can least handle it," the Times reports, citing the floods nearly a year ago in southeastern Kentucky, which is still struggling to recover. "The flooding in Vermont highlights the need to spend more on modeling and planning for flood events, said Mathew Sanders, who leads state resilience efforts for the Pew Charitable Trusts." It also shows that "The government can't focus its resilience efforts only on the obvious areas, near coasts or rivers."

Congress has increased funding for climate-resilience projects, but the $50 billion for such projects, in the latest infrastructiure bill, "the largest infusion in American history . . . still falls far below the need," Flavelle and Rojas write. "This spring, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it had received $5.6 billion in applications for two of its main disaster-preparedness programs — almost twice as much as was available."

The U.S. faces a steep preparedness climb-time, funding and the constant unpredictability of weather are all challenges. "As seas rise and storms get worse, the most flood-prone parts of the country — places like New Orleans, Miami, Houston, Charleston or even areas of New York City — could easily consume the government's entire budget for climate resilience without solving the problem for any of them," Flavelle and Rojas write. "Anna Weber, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who specializes in flood risks, said the government needs to direct more money to the most economically vulnerable communities — those places that are least able to pay for resilience projects on their own."

A town of 400 in the Southern Cascades buys surrounding forest for wildfire protection, tourism, and to set an example

100-year-old Douglas firs in the Butte Falls Community Forest
(Photo by Amanda Loman via Columbia Insight)

The small town of Butte Falls, Oregon, decided to purchase its surrounding timber -- not to sell it, but to create an older, more wildfire-protected forest that also serves as recreational tourist destination, reports Grant Stringer for Columbia Insight, a Pacific Northwest environmental news source. "With a population of just 400 people, Butte Falls is a speck in an ocean of remote timberland, much of it burned. . . . Conventional wisdom in the region would have Butte Falls try to reclaim its former glory as a logging hub. . . . But community leaders plan to protect their future by looking to the forest itself. . . . Locals want to grow an older and biodiverse forest that they say will better protect the town from wildfires while attracting outdoor tourism."

Butte Falls' town leadership is onto something. "Conservationists and the state's top politicos say the small project playing out in a remote corner of Pacific Northwest forest can teach other communities how to adapt to climate disasters and hard times," Stringer writes. "It's a strategy some environmentalists want to implement across U.S. forests to sequester carbon, promote biodiversity and blunt severe wildfires. . . . In the new Butte Falls Community Forest, local foresters could build a trail network and recreation amenities near a roaring waterfall to bring outdoor tourism to the town, providing incomes without relying on dwindling timber jobs."

Map by Mackenzie Miller, Columbia Insight

The idea for a community forest came to Linda Spencer following the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, Calif., 250 milkes south. The blaze was "a wake-up call for Spencer, who was the mayor of Butte Falls at the time. . . . When the Seattle-based timber giant Weyerhaeuser informed the Butte Falls City Hall of plans to clear-cut and sell the cleared parcels surrounding the town, likely to another timber company, Spencer jumped at the opportunity to create a community-owned forest instead. . . [she saw] the project as a way for the community to assert control of a resource that is critical to the town's future and the quality of its environment." Spencer told Stringer: "We didn't want someone else managing the forest around us. We wanted to manage it ourselves."

Stringer reports, "Climate science is unpopular in Butte Falls, which is staunchly conservative, says Mike Smeltz, a local forester. . . . But when a group of locals visited the new community forest on a recent Saturday, there was broad agreement that the climate is less hospitable for certain conifers than it once was. . . . . If Butte Falls can weather this fire season, Smeltz will lead efforts to thin the forest by cutting down young trees and dead limbs. . . . That will help the largest trees, including mighty ponderosa pines towering above the thicket, to continue flourishing. According to Smeltz, the town already secured $450,000 from the Oregon Department of Forestry and another $450,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for this work."

News-media roundup: E&P publisher says people with good ideas about preserving journalism need to work together

Mike Blinder cites Benjamin Franklin's 1754 political cartoon.

Editor & Publisher Publisher Mike Blinder has an Independence-themed editorial suggesting that people who are trying to sustain local journalism need to learn the lesson of the American colonies and unite their efforts: "In the past 24 months, we have reported on over 10 separate national, non-profit associations that seek dollars from members and funders, all with good ideas but not working in concert. And within the same time period, we have reported on five separate initiatives to define what truth in journalism is and how we can help reassure our readers that they are getting only accurate and truthful information in an unbiased, even-handed, and impartial manner. Plus, as third-party data moves in new directions with a radical change in the programmatic world, how are we poised to sell our aggregated, critical inventory at its highest value? And meanwhile, we keep losing so many battles on state and national levels when it comes to advocating for necessary legislation to help us maintain a competitive business model. So why is our industry so hard to unite while others seem to have no trouble working together to advance their common interests?"

Lee Enterprises has sold three newspapers south of St. Louis to Greg Hoskins’ Better Newspapers: the Park Hills Daily Journal, the Fredericktown Democrat News and the Farmington Press and Advantage. Hoskins said he would return local autonomy to each paper and build a printing plant in Park Hills. Hoskins' company, based in Mascoutah, Ill., has 39 publications in Illinois and Missouri, six radio stations and a printing plant in Altamont, Ill.

Map shows the three towns involved. To enlarge, click on it.

Natalie Perkins (right), editor and publisher of the Deer Creek Pilot in Rolling Fork, Miss., receives the President's Award from Mississippi Press Association President Stephanie Patton at the group's recent convention. Perkins, who also serves as assistant manager of the Sharkey County Emergency Management Agency, was feted for her work following an EF-4 tornado that devastated the community. The Pilot kept publishing on schedule.

The Hickman County Times of Centerville, Tenn., ran a photo of the county mayor and U.S. Sen Marsha Blackburn after she came to town, but told readers that didn't cover the meeting she held with "a dozen or so local leaders" because "Her spokesman invited the editor of this newspaper to attend on the condition that all comments in the session would be of the record. The editor declined to attend, and declined to meet with the senator after the closed meeting." Blackburn closed her last meeting in the county, too, the weekly reports.

Since East Palestine derailment, some states have moved to regulate freight trains, but it's a murky legal territory

Norfolk Southern locomotives in Conway, Pennsylvania
(Photo by Gene Puskar, The Associated Press)

Ambulances, fire trucks, people heading to emergency rooms and schoolchildren have all been stuck waiting for miles-long trains to pass. On Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, dumping gallons of vinyl chloride in an unsuspecting small town, a different discussion on rail safety began, and some states are taking action, report Marc Levy and Josh Funk of The Associated Press.

"Spurred on by train derailments, some states with busy criss-crossing freight railroads are pursuing their own safety remedies rather than wait for federal action amid industry opposition and questions about whether they even have authority to make the changes," Levy and Funk write. "Legislatures in at least a dozen states have advanced measures in recent weeks, including some in states such as Minnesota that have witnessed disruptive derailments."

The rail industry has long resisted state regulation. "It contends it's capable of making improvements and that its growing efficiency — including significantly longer trains and a much smaller workforce — doesn't compromise safety," AP reports. "States want limits on the length of trains that routinely stretch more than 2 miles long and on how much time trains can block road crossings . . . They are also pursuing rules to maintain the current standard of two-person crews, bolster the trackside detectors used to identify equipment problems and require more notice to local emergency responders about hazardous freight."

State efforts come with legal uncertainties "over whether only the federal government can enforce such requirements. And Congress and federal regulators are considering similar measures," Levy and Funk write. "Ohio moved quickly, with the Republican-controlled government enacting a new law within two months of the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine. . . . Rep. Rob Matzie (D), whose western Pennsylvania district is home to a major rail-freight handling hub, said he is satisfied with the state's legal standing. . . . Matzie told colleagues during floor arguments, 'It's now time for this state to act. We can't wait for federal regulations, which always seem to be in the works, but never quite get done. Or for federal laws that will never ever see the light of day.'"

"Two rail-union officials, Jason Doering and Matt Parker, who have both lobbied for legislation in Nevada for years, said it's important for states to act because they're not optimistic that Congress will pass meaningful reforms over the strong lobbying of the railroads in a polarized political climate," Levy and Funk report. "Even though government data shows that derailments have declined in recent years, there were still 1,049 of them last year — roughly three a day. More than three-quarters of them happen at slow speeds in railyards and don't cause significant damage. . .. . Joseph L. Schofer, a retired professor of civil and environmental engineering from Northwestern University, said some rules being proposed at the state and federal level — for instance, minimum crew size — have nothing to do with the East Palestine derailment because that train actually had three people in its crew. . . . He also said state-to-state rules will result in chaos."