Journal of Extreme Events

The Winter Storm Uri, which occurred in February 2021 (WSU2021), was regarded as a triple extreme weather event because it was a large winter storm, caused massive power outages, and occurred during a pandemic. The event spelled record-low temperatures, which caused power outages and blackouts, leaving over 4 million people without electricity during the ongoing pandemic. This study empirically examined the preparedness for, impacts from, and response to the WSU2021 of individual households who live in the Rio Grande Valley. Information on preparedness, impact, and the response was collected from the valley residents using an online survey instrument. The study’s findings suggested that low-income households were found to have positive associations with impact and response and negative associations with preparedness. In addition, the nation established a policy to promote and maintain the resiliency of 16 critical infrastructures 18 years ago, including the energy sector, but the efforts to make the emergency sector resilient were insufficient, leading to failing the litmus test for extreme event resiliency. Based on the study’s findings, the study concludes that it is imperative for all key stakeholders to build extreme event resiliency in the Rio Grande Valley.

Increasingly, city governments are having to deal with climate change repercussions alongside those of other disasters, all while addressing its implications for both daily life and future sustainability. This paper argues that to build resilience to future climate extreme events and multi-hazards, it is essential to establish a systemic approach across sectors at the city scale. The City of Cape Town recently endured an extreme drought, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a series of interviews and engagements with senior government officials, a detailed understanding of the City of Cape Town’s response to the 2015–2018 drought and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2021 was attained. In reviewing the City’s response, five inter-related adaptive governance capacities were identified as necessary for building a rapid and effective systemic response to future extreme events within city government. First, local government must be able to respond to hazards and risk systemically; second, system-level data is needed to quantify and develop an integrated understanding of important system components; and third, flexible governance mechanisms can help support agile leadership at the senior city management level. The fourth capacity is that of project execution skills for the rapid implementation of responses and infrastructure; the fifth is the ability to partner with civil society and the private sector. An analysis of these two proximate extreme events reveals the nature of these five capacities and how they have been put into practice in Cape Town. It is important to unpack and share the nature of these capacities and how they enabled a more systemic response, especially given the call for more attention to be paid to what adaptive urban governance looks like in practice when managing multi-risk and extreme events in cities.

In this study, the wind shear vector variability likely to mitigate the flights activities at the Cameroon Airport and in particular Garoua has been analyzed. This research is based on a statistical method R of pilot probe and observation synoptic station data, April–July 2021 period. The results show that Garoua Airport has recorded more than 55 percent of the intensities of the wind shear vector greater than 10 kt/100 ft with dominant directions in the North-South sector. The intensities of the headwind/tailwind shear vector are at 60 percent moderate; the probability density distribution shows 40 percent strong to very strong shear with moderate to strong probability. This fact may represent a problem for lighter aircrafts, whose crosswind rates are lower. In this context, the forecast of high wind speed values and directions becomes very important. The schedule distribution of the various wind during this period displays that the most sheared month is the month of May, the sounding that presents the strongest to very strong shears is that of 5 p.m. and the most sheared slice is the ground surface layer where the frictional force has a very large impact on the wind. In addition, the convective system’s formation and the geographical discontinuities effects contributed to the recording of shear types during the period not only at ground level but also at the superior levels.

In a time of many extremes — climate, pandemic, isolation — there is strength in community linkages that can provide resilience through arts-generated connections. The arts-led recovery approach to communities suffering extreme events and social isolation offers the capacity to use applied storytelling as both individual and social practice, and to generate creative contributions to social change. This paper will explore the extent to which, in bringing people together, the arts can create spaces that are open and conducive to real dialogue and engagement, developing resilience with wider applications. Monkivitch (EO of Creative Recovery Network) talks of listening to the ecology of voices, advocating for the voice of the artist to be central to government recoveries from extreme events. The intent of looking at co-creative systems or ecologies is to explore beyond disciplinary boundaries and articulate a social purpose both for the artists and the community involved in the curation. The creative arts process, in extreme events contexts, offers engagement with and empowerment of the community to develop and sustain resilience and adaptability. In this paper, a team of artists and academics with expertise in community participation, applied storytelling, socially-engaged arts and water risk management, will reflect on a variety of approaches to co-create arts-led community spaces. Two case studies are described to explore collaboration and co-production between creative artists and their communities as a participatory process to develop emotional resilience. The UK-based case study, ‘The Reasons in the Fens’, brought together diverse members of the community to develop and share personal stories and to work with a songwriter to compose a community song about the impact of the flood drought nexus in their region leading to developed empathy for diversities of views. The Australian case-study, the digital Regional Arts Park in Victoria, enabled co-curation using a creative ecosystem design which related strongly to storytelling for resilience. Both case studies offer opportunities to reflect on how a creative ecosystem provides a framework for exploring the disruptive role of the cultural sector in space/place resilience-building. The ongoing purpose of a creative ecosystem, as described in this paper, is in fact to strengthen creative organizations and individuals, which will develop a complex system ‘involving a multitude of people, institutions and places. To flourish, they require access to a suite of interconnected resources and capabilities’ (Creative Victoria (2016). Creative State 2016–2020, p. 19. https://creative.vic.gov.au/_data/assets/pdf_file/0007/54349/creativestate.pdf). The requirement is for the cultural, creative, social and commercial parts of this ecosystem to have meaningful interactions. This creative ecosystem potentially leads to a dynamic model with a vibrant or creative interplay between cultural values and stories. As Hartley and Potts (2014). Cultural Science: The Natural History of Stories, Demes, Knowledge and Innovation. London: Bloomsbury, p. 70) indicate, ‘culture is the “survival vehicle” for groups (and) stories are the survival vehicle for culture’.