disasterrecovery

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since.

Warning: This episode contains descriptions of death.

When fires swept West Maui, Hawaii, many residents fled for their lives — but soon discovered they had nowhere to go. Thousands of structures, mostly homes, had been reduced to rubble. Husks of incinerated cars lined the historic Front Street in Lahaina, while search crews nearby made their way painstakingly from house to house, looking for human remains.

Ydriss Nouara, a resident of Lahaina, recounts his experience fleeing the inferno, and Mike Baker, the Seattle bureau chief for The Times, explains how an extraordinary set of circumstances turned the city into a death trap.

Guest: Mike Baker, the Seattle bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Listen to the original version of the episode here.
• Nearly a week after the fires started, relatives received little information as search and identification efforts moved slowly.
• How the fires turned Lahaina into a death trap.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Your morning briefing. The news you need in just 15 minutes.
On today's podcast:

1) Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has proposed a March 4 trial date for Donald Trump

2) Hawaiian Electric Industries faces a new lawsuit blaming its equipment for starting the blazes

3) Fed Minutes fan concerns that the central bank will continue to raise interest rates 

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Last month at COP27, the U.N. climate change conference, a yearslong campaign ended in an agreement. The rich nations of the world — the ones primarily responsible for the emissions that have caused climate change — agreed to pay into a fund to help poorer nations that bear the brunt of its effects. 

In the background, however, an even more meaningful plan was taking shape, led by the tiny island nation of Barbados. 

Guest: David Gelles, a climate correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• As global warming delivers cascading weather disasters, leaders at U.N. climate talks said it’s time to radically overhaul the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Although there have been a number of recent destructive environmental events, the duration and devastation of the fires in Australia have made a powerful impact on the collective psyche. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, although disastrous to humans, seem acausal aspects of Nature. Other environmental damage, such as Amazon fires, is caused by human behavior. Australia’s plight, however, calls into blazing question mankind’s relationship with the Great Mother herself. Like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah or The Flood, we may wonder about archetypal retribution for man’s environmental sins. Just as ego may be called through crisis into right relationship with soul, perhaps the heartbreak of this current psychic scorching will open new consciousness and caring. 

Dream

"It's a sunny afternoon and I'm walking, in a loose crowd, with my entire extended family up a hill on a large field of green grass. Forest surrounds us at the far edges. We are on our way to a funeral, the atmosphere is serene. Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I notice a lumberjack-like man walking past everyone through the crowd carrying a huge leather/mesh bag on his back. I can see the bag consists of three grown grizzly bears. Once the man arrives on top of the hill (quite far ahead of me and my nuclear family) he sets down the massive bag and zips it open. I'm thinking, "STOP"! The three bears scramble out the bag and wreak havoc on the crowd. It quickly goes dark and the dream turns into a hide-and-seek sort of horror show. I'm hiding with my father in a small, half built old wooden cottage by which a river flows and I see one of the bears swimming, searching."

The World Trade Center was once a global symbol of progress. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, the area has undergone a massive rebuilding process. Chuck and Josh take a look at the World Trade Center, its memorial and its symbolism in this special episode.

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The recent disaster in Japan has caused massive damage and killed thousands -- but that's not all: The Fukushima nuclear plant may possibly be on the verge of a meltdown. Tune in to learn how meltdowns work, and what a meltdown would mean for Japan.

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