Lessons in Climate Adaptation From Florida’s Hurricane Recovery

Oct 27, 2023

When Hurricane Ian hit Florida in late September 2022, it took more than 100 lives, becoming the deadliest storm to hit the United States since Katrina in 2005. Hurricane Ian also caused the most financial damage in Florida of any storm in history, and was the third costliest in the U.S. as a whole.

The storm also caused a massive loss of housing. In a state where developers were engaged in predatory behavior even before Ian, how have people been rebuilding in the intersection between climate change and disaster capitalism? Florida-based writer Elena Novak, who reported on post-hurricane rebuilding for YES!, answered that question in a conversation with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali.

Sonali Kolhatkar joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.