Summary
The theme of the 2024 Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop, which ran from July 14 to 17, was “The Stories We Tell: Creative Strategies for Understanding and Communicating Disaster Risk.”
As disasters continue to increase in frequency and intensity, people are looking toward experts and government agencies for guidance and information to inform their actions, understand these crises, and find solutions. Making that information available, though, is only half the battle for researchers. This challenge was the focus of the 49th Annual Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop.
The theme of this year’s conference, which was hosted by the University of Colorado’s Natural Hazards Center, was The Stories We Tell: Creative Strategies for Understanding and Communicating Disaster Risk. More than a dozen Hub members were among the more than 600 participants gathered in Broomfield, Colorado, to attend the workshop and subsequent researchers and practitioners meetings.
Notably, this event is the highlight of the year for many experts in the field, drawing in hundreds of researchers, students, non-profit organizations, and mitigation and emergency managers in private and public sectors from across the globe.
Facilitating connections is a major goal of this workshop. Its organizers intentionally schedule individual introductions, long lunches, breaks, and social events to allow participants to get to know each other. Several Hub members attended the annual barbecue, one of the workshop’s longstanding traditions.
The Hub’s representation on a CoPe-focused panel on the first day of the conference was a significant highlight for CHEER. Sarah DeYoung, a member of the Hub’s executive committee based at the University of Delaware, was interviewed during a session titled Improving Communities and Ecosystems: The Coastlines and People Program. This five-person panel spotlighted four CoPe hubs and allowed representatives from each to give an overview of their collaborative approach to research and their progress so far. She was also joined by Krystina Dillard, who represented North Carolina Community Action Association, one of the CHEER’s community partners.
The meeting was an opportunity for Hub members to showcase CHEER’s growing body of research. Sydney Dyck and Julie Elliott presented a poster during the workshop that described their preliminary findings from recent interviews with representatives from CHEER community partner organizations. The following day, Adam Andresen led a session during the researchers’ meeting that focused on the consequences of delayed insurance payouts.
Annika Doneghy’s research explores how repeated disaster cycles shape individual perceptions of dis/ability.
Notably, Hub alumn Annika Doneghy, one of CHEER’s inaugural summer scholars and a 2021 Bill Anderson Fund fellow, also spotlighted the Hub as a recipient of the Natural Hazards Center’s 2024 Disability and Disasters Award. Her research, which will officially take off in 2025, will explore “how repeated disaster cycles shape people’s perception of dis/ability.”
Notably, her experience in the Hub has influenced her research ambitions, as she plans to return to Greenville to conduct fieldwork in Eastern North Carolina.
“My time with CHEER last summer really taught me a lot about disaster experiences and the chronic recovery people often go through,” Doneghy said. “Learning from people about their experiences and firsthand narratives was really rewarding.”
Over the course of three days, current and former members of the Hub represented CHEER as volunteers, panelists, moderators, and presenters.
Workshop – Sessions and Events
- Art and Disasters: Crafting Resilience and Recovery (Hub Representative: Tricia Wachtendorf, University of Delaware – Panelist)
- What’s in the Box: Designing Tools to Be Used (Hub Representative: TyKeara Mims, Texas A&M University – Recorder)
- Beyond Buyouts: Stories of Community-Driven Relocation (Hub Representative: Kayode Nelson Adeniji, East Carolina University – Recorder)
- Bill Anderson Fund Lightning Talks (Annika Doneghy, Case Western Reserve University – Rethinking Disability in Disaster Cycles)
Workshop – Poster Sessions
- Coastal Hazards, Equity, Economic Prosperity, and Resilience Hub: Community Partner Interviews (PDF) (Sydney Dyck and Julie Elliott, University of Delaware)
- Alone and Resilient? Examining Power Outage Effects by Community Type (PDF) (Adam Andresen, University of Delaware)
- Unveiling Voices: Evacuation Experiences of Incarcerated Women in Disasters (PDF) (TyKeara Mims, Texas A&M University)
- Lioness: Justice Impacted Women’s Alliance and Texas A&M University’s Community-Led Academic Collaboration (PDF) (TyKeara Mims, Texas A&M University)
Researchers Meeting
- The Consequences of Delayed Insurance Payout—How Long Is Too Long? (Hub Researchers: Joseph Trainor, University of Delaware; Adam Andresen, University of Delaware; Nesar Ahmed Khan, University of Delaware; Abbey Hotard, University of Delaware)
- Dark Was the Night: Examining Power Outage Effects From Winter Storm Elliott (Hub Researchers: Adam Andresen, University of Delaware)
- Consequences of Buyouts as a Response to Flood Events in Rural Communities (Hub Researchers: Meghan Millea, East Carolina University; Kayode Nelson Adeniji, East Carolina University)
- What Kids Can Do: Children’s Helping Behaviors in the COVID-19 Pandemic (Hub Researcher: Melissa Villarreal, Natural Hazards Center)
- Floodplain Management in the United States: The Role of Local Governments (Hub Researcher: A.R. Siders, University of Delaware)
- Probabilistic Seismic Analysis of Water Supply Interruptions in Terms of Societal Impact (Hub Researcher: Rachel Davidson, University of Delaware)
