Under Water

LISTENING: to my cat cry at my door
FEELING: overwhelmed with gratitude and anger
SEEING: the fall sun shine outside

TW: Today's newsletter discusses domestic violence and femicide.

Less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene roared into the Southeast, Americans are bracing for yet another ferocious storm: Hurricane Milton. By the time you all read this, the storm is likely to have made landfall. I'm writing this ahead of its arrival.

There are several groups of people I think about whenever a horrific fossil fuel-powered: incarcerated people, immigrants (especially undocumented ones), Indigenous communities, people who live in mobile homes. These days, I'm thinking a lot about the women who are living in unsafe conditions: the women with exes who won't leave them alone, the women who share children with psychos who don't understand that they're over, the women who are too afraid to leave abusive partners.

There's not enough research on this topic, but there's enough to know that when a hurricane hits, women become much more vulnerable to abuse and, yes, death.

Welcome to Possibilities, a creative climate newsletter on the possibilities that lie where crisis meets community. I’m Yessenia Funes, and I'm getting really personal today.

In 2018, I wrote about domestic violence post-Hurricane Michael. This wasn't a unique phenomenon. This is a pattern that's been documented following Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Harvey, and Hurricane Maria. This is global, even. We see this in countries beyond the U.S. — like Bangladesh.

“Weather events like these and disasters, in general, are opportunities for abusers — both domestic violence attackers and sexual assault perpetrators — to take advantage of the restrictive access survivors have to resources and to also take advantage of the isolation in the aftermath survivors experience,” Meg Baldwin told me back in 2018. At the time, she was executive director of Refuge House, a safe center for victims and survivors. “That isolation becomes even more intense and is even more of an opportunity for attackers to harm others.”

Surge in Domestic Violence Feared in Wake of Hurricane Michael

As Hurricane Michael whirled toward Florida over a week ago, Meg Baldwin went into overdrive. As executive director of Refuge House, which works to end

GizmodoYessenia Funes

This has been heavy on my mind because my own family just experienced a tragedy involving femicide. It's a long painful story that feels a bit inappropriate to get into detail here in my newsletter, but we're now fundraising for the burial and repatriation of Brenda Guadalupe Alfaro, the 29-year-old mother whom our cousin brutally murdered. Yes, my cousin.

I didn't know him very well, but I don't stand by him or what he's done for one second. It's been disheartening to see random people on the internet point to my awful cousin, who is an immigrant, and determine that all immigrants must be bloodthirsty killers. This isn't new rhetoric, but it's alarming. Immigrants are always the scapegoat. We're seeing that live as the right-wing (particularly Donald fucking Trump) believes immigrants are to blame for a lack of federal funds to help disaster victims.

That's a whole other rant of mine, but I want to make this clear. My cousin is a monster — but that's not because he is an immigrant. Immigrants are more than the worst of us. The same goes for any other group of people. Obviously! This should go without being said.

Wanna know who else was an immigrant? Brenda, my cousin's ex, the mother of a 2-year-old child who is now left without his mom. My heart is with her and with this sweet boy I've known since he was a few months old — the sweetest little love who keeps asking for his mom and kissing pictures of her, confused as to why she hasn't yet arrived to take him home.

Our GoFundMe has more details, so please read and donate and share if you're able. Please tag me if you do share. It means the world. If we surpass our goal, that means more funds to ensure the baby has a future and that my dear cousin, who's fostering him as she has before, has what she needs to keep him safe.

Across the country and globe, too many women's voices go unheard. Too many tragedies happen under the guise of a storm. In Georgia, Hurricane Helene left shelters "damaged and some inoperable," according to an Instagram post from the Georgia Coalition for Domestic Violence. They're also accepting donations here.

October marks Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Women and their children all too often bear the deadly cost of a man's emotional immaturity, rage, and violence. My heart is with the families who can't find an escape as the eye of the storm approaches. 🌀

Rest in Power

While we can't say for certain that climate change led to these specific weather events (we need attribution studies for that), we do know that the Earth's rising temperatures are already creating more disasters like these.

Hurricane Helene's death toll continues to climb, now sitting at 232.

In North Dakota, at least two people have died due to wildfires as of Wednesday.

This week, at least five people died in New Delhi, India, after being exposed to extreme heat while attending an Indian Air Force show.

In Taiwan, Typhoon Krathon left at least two dead last week.

Flooding and landslides have ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina, killing at least 22 people.

Currently Reading

Oops, I've been doing a poor job of updating y'all of my own work. Sorry. Here are some of my latest stories:

• A beautiful piece for Present Space Magazine on the people we lose to the sea as they attempt to migrate to new homes. The photo from this week's newsletter is from this story.
• I wrote a profile for C&EN's special Trailblazers issue, for which I also served as a sensitivity editor. Now, I don't love that this scientist is about carbon capture, but her children's books were pretty inspiring to see as someone who dreams of writing children's books herself.
• I got such great feedback from my sources for this profile of Native Renewables for Atmos. The organization is bringing solar energy to Diné and Hopi homes that have historically lacked access to energy at all.
• For Important Not Important, I wrote about the important efforts I'm leading alongside Rebecca Weston of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America to develop mental health resources for environmental and climate journalists.
• To mark the anniversary of Israel's attempted genocide of the Palestinian people, I wrote for Atmos about how oil and gas companies should be held complicit for selling Israel the oil it's using to transport bombs and launch airstrikes.

I love sharing stories that are not my own, but apologies I was so behind on my own pieces as I know y'all appreciate those updates. Unrelated to me, have you read Elizabeth Kolbert's latest at The New Yorker? It's a long one — but so worth it.

Atmos has a whole week of special coverage for the Oct. 7 anniversary. I had nothing to do with that, so shout out to the editorial team. This piece by rabbi Elliot Kukla resonated. He writes: "Present-tense Palestinian suffering is often eclipsed by Jewish historical triggers on a geopolitical stage. As a rabbi, I have a moral obligation to help my community grieve and heal so that we can bear witness to what is happening now."

This important story from Schuyler Mitchell for The Intercept underscores the way incarcerated people were left behind during Hurricane Helene: "We thought we were going to die there. We didn’t think anybody was going to come back for us."

I almost wrote today's newsletter about conspiracy theories. I mentioned it briefly above, but you definitely want to read Amy Westervelt's latest piece in Drilled all about this issue.

Art

I hope y'all get some peace this week because I know it'll be a while until I find some of my own. xx

- Yessenia