Disasters

"HINKLEY -- Underwater home mortgages plague the High Desert at an approximate rate of 60 percent, according to real estate website Zillow.com. But in Hinkley, residents say the entire town is dealing with mortgages above their current assessed values."

"SACO, Maine -- In the aftermath of the historic floods caused by Superstorm Sandy, some city leaders have begun to argue for the construction of sea walls capable of shielding the U.S. coastline from ever more intense storms."

"Cancer-causing chemicals linger around homes and in gardens over a 9-square-mile area more than three months after a catastrophic fire at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, according to an environmental justice group."

"Superstorm Sandy made one thing clear to millions in the New York metro area: Despite modern transportation and communication systems, and extensive water and electricity services, nature is still in control. The same is true in Sacramento."

"JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- At the time of day Friday when most workers are making plans for happy hour, Cheryl Johnson is making a final scan of the online job listings at the Jersey City One-Stop Career Center. Her skirt suit is wrinkled. Johnson lost her job after Hurricane Sandy lashed the mid-Atlantic states three weeks ago."

"A U.S. industrial accident investigative board served Black Elk Energy with a subpoena on Monday, seeking information about last week's offshore Gulf of Mexico oil platform explosion that left one worker dead and another missing."

"New Jersey Transit's struggle to recover from Superstorm Sandy is being compounded by a pre-storm decision to park much of its equipment in two rail yards that forecasters predicted would flood, a move that resulted in damage to one-third of its locomotives and a quarter of its passenger cars."

"As Northeast states take measure of the destruction brought by Hurricane Sandy, there's a new concern. New York and New Jersey have dozens of Superfund sites close to the shore. Some of these toxic zones were flooded by Sandy's storm surge. There are worries in Newark that toxic chemicals may have been swept into some people's home."

"An eerie sight greeted Scott Kahan recently when he toured the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge near Atlantic City by helicopter: a giant bird sanctuary with almost no birds."
 

"Across the nation, tens of billions of tax dollars have been spent on subsidizing coastal reconstruction in the aftermath of storms, usually with little consideration of whether it actually makes sense to keep rebuilding in disaster-prone areas."