An aerial view of the Industrial Canal after its levee failed during Hurricane Katrina. (NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune file photo)

nola.com - by Tristan Baurick - December 11, 2017

One of the country's largest credit rating agencies has put New Orleans and other coastal cities on notice: prepare for the effects of climate change or risk a hit on your credit score.

In a new report, Moody's Investors Service warned that it will evaluate efforts to adapt to sea level rise, flooding, severe storms and other impacts from rising global temperatures when setting its ratings for loans and bonds. The report mentions New Orleans and Louisiana several times as high risk areas.

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Image: A street in St. Martin after Hurricane Irma. Residents spoke of a disintegration in law and order as survivors struggled in the face of severe food and water shortages. Credit Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

nytimes.com - Azam Ahmed and Kirk Semple - September 10th 2017

At dawn, people began to gather, quietly planning for survival after Hurricane Irma.

They started with the grocery stores, scavenging what they needed for sustenance: water, crackers, fruit.

But by nightfall on Thursday, what had been a search for food took a more menacing turn, as groups of people, some of them armed, swooped in and took whatever of value was left: electronics, appliances and vehicles.

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AN EXPANDING LIST OF NEWS AND INFORMATION RESOURCES RELATED TO HURRICANE IRMA . . .

CLICK HERE - DisasterAssistance.gov

CLICK HERE - Florida Division of Emergency Management - floridadisaster.org

CLICK HERE - Florida Division of Emergency Management - Hurricane Irma latest information including evacuation zones, evacuation orders, shelters, and much more

CLICK HERE - FEMA - Hurricane Irma

CLICK HERE - The National Institutes of Heath - Moisture and Mold Remediation - Standard Operating Procedures (14 page .PDF file)

CLICK HERE - Texas A&M - Dry out before Rebuilding (2 page .PDF file)

nola.com - by Mark Schleifstein - July 28, 2017

Twelve years after Hurricane Ivan destroyed a Taylor Energy Co. platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the federal government has finally started investigating how oil and gas that is still leaking from its wells damages natural resources. The flow of oil, "if left unchecked, could continue for 100 years or more," says the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the Interior Department agency that oversees gulf drilling.

Although the storm waylaid Taylor Energy's MC-20 Saratoga platform on Sept. 15, 2004, it was not until late 2016 that the government began its inquiry, and not until Thursday (July 27) that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed the investigation. 

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A sugar cane farm known as the Evergreen property is one of two resettlement sites under consideration for the residents of Isle de Jean Charles, a rapidly-disappearing island on Louisiana's coast. (Photo courtesy of the Louisiana Office of Community Development)

nola.com - by Tristan Baurick - July 18, 2017

The people of Isle de Jean Charles will likely trade their sinking island for a sugar farm 40 miles inland. An experimental program aimed at transplanting the small community in coastal Louisiana to safer ground has narrowed its search from 16 properties to two large farms north of Houma in rural Terrebonne Parish.

Last year, Isle de Jean Charles became the first community in the U.S. to receive federal assistance for a large-scale retreat from the impacts of climate change.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLES WITHIN THE LINKS BELOW . . .

CLICK HERE - $7.7 million will pay for flood, climate resilience studies in Louisiana

weather.com - by Pam Wright - June 28, 2017

CLICK HERE - VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Impediments to inland resettlement under conditions of accelerated sea level rise

An estimated 2 billion people will be displaced from their homes by 2100 due to climate-driven rising seas, a new study says.

Roughly one-fifth of the world's population may become climate change refugees, according to Cornell University. The majority of those will be people who live on coastlines around the world, including about 2 million in Florida alone.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Cornell University - Rising seas could result in 2 billion refugees by 2100

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Estimating economic damage from climate change in the United States

nola.com - by Mark Schleifstein - June 29, 2017

New research concludes that the poorest one third of U.S. counties -- including many Louisiana parishes -- could sustain economic damages representing as much as 20 percent of their annual income by the end of this century if nothing is done to minimize climate change. The findings are explained by the lead author of the study in a video released with its publication Thursday (June 29) in Science magazine.

"Unmitigated climate change will be very expensive for huge regions of the United States," said Solomon Hsiang, an associate professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Study: Climate change damages US economy, increases inequality

Photo from Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries

nola.com - by Tristan Baurick - June 28, 2017

A fast-moving plague of foreign insects is decimating marshlands that bind the fragile lower Mississippi River Delta. Identified only two months ago, the Asian bug is wiping out vast stands of roseau cane, Louisiana's most erosion- and storm-resistant wetland plant. As marsh rapidly turns to open water, the state has come up with no money or viable solutions to combat loss.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLES WITHIN THE LINKS BELOW . . .

CLICK HERE - Louisiana’s coast was already sickly. Now it’s being hit by a plague.

CLICK HERE - State Issues Warning on Transporting Roseau Cane

cnn.com - by Susan Scutti - June 9, 2017

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Environment International - Prenatal naled and chlorpyrifos exposure is associated with deficits in infant motor function in a cohort of Chinese infants

Naled -- the main chemical ingredient in the bug spray used in Miami to ward off Zika-carrying mosquitoes -- has an association with reduced motor function in infants, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Environmental International.

The University of Michigan researchers found that children in China who had the highest prenatal exposure to naled had, at age 9 months, 3% to 4% lower scores on tests of their fine motor skills, which are the small movements of hands, fingers, face, mouth and feet, compared with those with the lowest exposure.

This is the first general-population study of the insecticide chemical, the researchers said.

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kfdm.com - by Kaily Cunningham - June 4, 2017

PORT ARTHUR — After nearly two months of smoke pouring out of a German Pellets silo in Port Arthur, the silo collapsed early Sunday morning.

Authorities say the silo collapse just after 4 a.m. . . .

 . . . However, they say, their health concerns -- as a result of inhaling the smoke -- continue.

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In Louisiana’s industrial heart, the shadow of Trump’s deregulation push looms as St James residents fight chemical plants, pipelines and laissez-faire policies

theguardian.com - by Lauren Zanolli in St James, Louisiana. Main image by Julie Dermansky - June 6, 2017

We’re sick of being sick, we’re tired of being tired,” said Pastor Harry Joseph of Mount Triumph Baptist Church, which serves this sleepy riverside town of about 1,000 residents, mostly poor and African American. Once a bucolic village of pasturelands and sugarcane fields on the banks of the Mississippi, St James, Louisiana, is now a densely packed industrial zone in the heart of Louisiana’s petrochemical corridor, commonly referred to as “Cancer Alley” . . . 

 . . . Fifteen large industrial sites – mainly oil storage facilities, pipelines and petrochemical plants – now fill the 13-mile stretch of road that defines the town of St James, also known as the fifth ward of St James parish.

Yet residents here say they’ve seen little economic benefit – either in jobs or tax revenues – from the industry that has taken over the town. Instead, they say, they’ve been saddled with a myriad of health issues, medical bills and environmental degradation.

Deadly carriers of disease: Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.  Paulo Whitaker | Reuters

Gulf Coast region is vulnerable to Zika attacks

Congress may not appreciate full extent of potential damage

Conservative calculations suggest full impact could exceed $2 billion

CLICK HERE - PLOS - The potential economic burden of Zika in the continental United States

cnbc.com - by Robert Ferris - May 11, 2017

The Zika virus stands to cost the United States billions of dollars, even if few people are infected.

Researchers from several American institutions have calculated that the "virus from Hell" could result in total costs ranging from $183 million to over $1.2 billion, depending on infection rates in several at-risk states in the South.

The researchers warn that infection rates could engender costs that exceed the amounts of money the U.S. government may give for prevention and treatment, if the recent debates over funding are any indication.

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submitted by Albert Gomez

CLICK HERE - CDC - MMWR - Vital Signs: Update on Zika Virus–Associated Birth Defects and Evaluation of All U.S. Infants with Congenital Zika Virus Exposure — U.S. Zika Pregnancy Registry, 2016

nytimes.com - by Pam Belluck - April 4, 2017

One in 10 pregnant women in the continental United States with a confirmed Zika infection had a baby with brain damage or other serious birth defects, according to the most comprehensive report to date on American pregnancies during the Zika crisis.

The report, published Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also provided more evidence that the risk of birth defects was greater when women were infected in the first trimester of pregnancy. Fifteen percent of women with confirmed Zika infection in the first trimester had babies with birth defects, the report found.

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Cuba, United States sign oil spill deal before Trump inauguration

reuters.com - by Marc Frank - January 10, 2017

Cuba and the United States agreed on Monday to jointly prevent, contain and clean up oil and other toxic spills in the Gulf of Mexico . . .

 . . . U.S. Charge d'Affaires Jeffrey DeLaurentis, upon signing the agreement, said it was one of a series of deals to protect the shared marine environment of the two neighboring countries separated by just 90 miles (145 km) of water . . . 

 . . . Last week a deal was struck to export small amounts of charcoal to the United States and in December Google signed an agreement to place servers on the island to quicken access to its products.

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