zones

When hurricanes and other extreme storms unleash downpours like Tropical Storm Beta has been doing in the South, the floodwater doesn’t always stay within the government’s flood risk zones. New research suggests that nearly twice as many properties are at risk from a 100-year flood today than the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood maps indicate. Unfortunately, many of the people living in those properties have no idea that their homes are at risk until the floodwaters rise. I am a sociologist who works on disaster vulnerability. In a new study, I looked at the makeup of communities in Houston that aren’t in the 100-year flood zone, but that still flood. What I found tells a story of racial disparities in the city. Research in other cities has shown similar flooding problems in ...

Tyree Colion, a rapper and ex-gang member, risks his life setting up No Shoot Zones in communities with record murders. Late on a Sunday evening in July 2017, rapper and former gang member Tyree Colion was stabbed in the neck in East Baltimore. Bleeding, the 42-year old pressed a t-shirt into his wound with one hand and launched a Facebook Live broadcast with the other. He turned the camera on himself. "I'm losing too much blood," he said, gasping for air. In the background, his female companion could be heard screaming for help, pleading with him to "hold on". "Yo if I die, keep pushing them zones," he said, before falling onto the pavement and losing consciousness. Several thousand Facebook subscribers who were tuned in knew the "zones" Colion was talking about. But for Tracy Cox,...

Tag: zones

Homes are flooding outside FEMA’s 100-year flood zones, and racial inequality is showing through