PHILADELPHIA—In 2024, Pennsylvania endured a record number of the nation’s billion-dollar weather disasters, from winter storms to drought: 12. Even adjusting for inflation, that’s more than the state faced over the entire decade of the 1980s.
Last week, representatives from government, academia, medicine and activism gathered at Drexel University in Philadelphia to tackle an urgent question for Pennsylvania and neighboring states: How can we better prepare for increasingly disruptive severe weather?
“Last year was the hottest year on record. We’re seeing the most number of designated hurricanes. We’re seeing tornadoes in this area that we’ve never seen before,” said Mathy Stanislaus, vice provost and executive director at Drexel’s Environmental Collaboratory, which organized the event. “Whatever you think about the cause, it’s happening. We need to prepare.”
The event took place against a backdrop of turmoil, from last month’s devastating wildfires in California and a torrent of disaster-related misinformation to President Donald Trump’s threats against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and his determination to cut off funding for combating climate change.
The loss of funding from FEMA could be catastrophic in terms of planning for extreme weather. FEMA supports a number of grants specifically focused on emergency preparedness. FEMA also assists in recovery; in 2022, for example, in the wake of Hurricane Ida, FEMA sent affected Pennsylvania homeowners and renters more than $100 million.
“The federal government’s disinvestment is going to exacerbate the need for state and local governments to further step up their game,” Stanislaus said.
The White House and FEMA did not respond to a request for comment.
Stanislaus said preparedness—getting ready for an emergency well before it happens—is too often overlooked in discussions about climate change. “I view this as the leading crisis of the crisis,” he said. Emergency preparedness includes planning and training for things like early warning systems, evacuation routes and back-up energy and communication networks.
“It’s very, very hard to connect with people so that they understand the severity of the issue,” he said. The pattern of increasing and intensifying extreme weather events like heat waves, flooding and hurricanes is directly linked to fossil fuel-driven climate change. As the planet warms, the implications for public health, economic recovery and social stability are enormous.
The event at Drexel brought together a diverse group of policymakers, researchers, residents and local officials to talk about preparation and recovery in the aftermath of a disaster. “We see ourselves as a facilitator of those conversations,” Stanislaus said. The Environmental Collaboratory plans to use insights from the gathering to create a roadmap for how to better address severe weather events in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Chitra Kumar, managing director of the climate and energy program at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, was impressed by the willingness to collaborate in the room, “despite all the rhetoric we’re hearing from D.C.”
“Climate impacts are worsening and our federal politicians are going the wrong direction,” she said.
“These types of gatherings are so important because so often we work in silos,” said Dr. Elizabeth Cerceo, the director of climate health at Rowan University’s Cooper Medical School. “With the public health crises that we’re facing now, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot if we don’t make the most of all of the resources that we have.”
Much of the conversation centered on a category of severe weather that might come as a surprise to those outside the field, especially in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware: heat. Speaker after speaker emphasized the dangers posed by heat waves. Scientists at Duke University estimated in 2020 that 12,000 Americans die annually because of the effects of heat exposure.
“People tend to underestimate its impacts and push themselves until it’s too late. This can happen to anyone,” Cerceo said. Severe heat disproportionately affects those who are already vulnerable: the elderly, children and pregnant women. When heat combines with air pollution, the impacts compound. “When you have poor air quality and heat, that’s like the perfect storm,” she said.
“Climate impacts are worsening and our federal politicians are going the wrong direction.”
— Chitra Kumar, Union of Concerned Scientists
“The mortality rate during heat events goes up,” said Dr. Alan Greenglass, a retired physician who works to raise awareness about the public health repercussions of climate change. “Many people get sick and don’t die, but end up missing work, missing school, in the emergency room.”
Greenglass said educating the public about the dangers of heat, accurately predicting heat waves in advance and preparing emergency response systems can make a difference and save lives.
Maria Cabrera, a city councilwoman in Wilmington, Delaware, advocated for multilingual and multicultural communication about how to prepare for severe weather. “As a person of Hispanic descent, I feel that to be inclusive, we have to make sure that we’re reaching out to all communities in their language,” she said.
The second Trump administration’s immigration policies are likely to magnify an existing problem: Some undocumented people will not seek aid during a disaster out of fear of the government, Cabrera and others said. FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which also houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“People are under the radar. I don’t think there was ever a sense of, ‘I’m comfortable with this.’ But now it’s even worse. So if there is a natural disaster, people will not reach out for help,” she said.
Cabrera applauded the university’s effort to bring key partners together to talk about planning for severe weather.
“We’re entering a climate where the leadership of this country does not believe in global warming,” she said. “Now more than ever, we have to continue the work.”
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Kiley Bense
Reporter, Pennsylvania
Kiley Bense covers climate change and the environment with a focus on Pennsylvania, politics, energy, and public health. She has reported on the effects of the fracking boom in Pennsylvania, the expansion of the American plastics industry, and the intersection of climate change and culture. Her previous work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, the Believer, and Sierra Magazine, and she holds master’s degrees in journalism and creative writing from Columbia University. She is based in Pennsylvania.
