Blog

By Nidia Martinez, Ph.D People and businesses often believe that if they can renew their insurance program year after year, they have “climate change coverage.” That is a misconception. Insurance covers losses from specific events—e.g., hurricanes, floods, wildfires—under defined terms and conditions. It does not cover the underlying trend driving those events. And it has no obligation to renew contracts year after year. While climate change is often described in terms of ris

More than two weeks after Winter Storm Fern swept across the South, many communities remain in a difficult in-between phase: the immediate crisis has passed, but thousands of residents—particularly the elderly, rural, low-income, and medically vulnerable—are still without reliable heat, power, communications, or water. President Trump issued Presidential Disaster Declarations for twelve states , but in many places FEMA Individual Assistance has not yet been activated. This cr

Check out our next webinar on February 11, 2026 if you are interested in learning more! Disasters are not random acts of fate. The storms, hurricanes, fires, and other extreme events that naturally occur are not disasters in themselves. What causes the disasters are the failures of power, water, communications, logistics, and finance. Communities that prepare for those failures recover faster, cheaper, and with far less human cost. As we see now in the aftermath of Winter Sto

As communities across the South—from Texas and Oklahoma through the East Coast—dig out from Winter Storm Fern's historic damage, a familiar pattern is emerging: time is the most expensive commodity . Businesses need to reopen, infrastructure must be restored, and communities expect visible progress—often long before federal reimbursements arrive. Winter Storm Fern has exposed what disaster finance professionals already know: most state and local governments are not structure

Preparing Communities for Severe Winter Weather: A Leadership Playbook for the Days Ahead If you don't have time to read the blog, here's a quick checklist to review. Winter Storm Fern (always a bad sign when they name a storm), is forecast to bring snow, ice, freezing rain, and prolonged power and transportation disruptions to large portions of the South, Southeast, and East Coast. For community leaders, this is not just a weather event. It is a continuity test for local go