ON ITS FACE, WEATHER IS the great equalizer. Car commuters, no matter how pricey their respective rides, have to navigate the same icy roads and poor visibility as those with beat-up vehicles. A rained-out baseball game affects cheap-seat buyers and behind-the-plate ticket holders the same. Tidal waves take out everything – and everyone – in their paths.
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| A member of the United States Coast Guard wades through flood waters in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence in Lumberton, North Carolina. |
But when it comes to escaping, surviving and recovering from a natural disaster, it's the poor who suffer the most, experts say. And with the extreme weather patterns and storms associated with climate change, the economic divide will only accelerate, they predict.
"The rich can survive well, and the poor don't," says Columbia University professor John Mutter, author of "The Disaster Profiteers: How Natural Disasters Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Even Poorer." "And it continues to separate us.”
The disparity starts even before a natural disaster hits. Lower-income people may not have cellphones, broadband or regular use of technology that will keep them abreast of looming danger.
Read the the story from U.S. News and World Report by Susan Milligan - “The Forecast for Recovery.”
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