HVRI is delighted to announce, Brett Robertson's appointment as Associate Director

 Brett Robertson, our colleague from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, has agreed to join HVRI as an Associate Director.  Brett studies communication technology use in organizational, risk, and mass communication contexts with a focus on disaster preparedness and prevention.  We have appreciated our collaboration on projects over recent years and are excited to have him more deeply involved in HVRI's work.  Please take a moment to learn more about Brett Robertson.

HVRI alums featured in Inside Carolina video

Check out Inside Carolina's "Protecting South Carolina -- from emergency preparedness to brain health," and see what Melissa Potter and Tyler Spires are doing to help South Carolina residents in emergencies.

Hurricane science: Key advances in tracking the deadly storms

Cary Mock points to early hurricane forecasters

Helene and Milton are both likely to be $50 billion disasters, joining ranks of most costly storms

Susan Cutter talks about the costs of hurricanes and of rebuilding

How Hurricane Helene became a deadly disaster across six states

Cary Mock leads The Conversation

How did South Carolina state leaders handle Helene? Depends on who you ask.

Cary Mock and Susan Cutter weigh in on SC's handling of Helene

How Columbia plans to mitigate its urban heat island

Kirstin Dow discusses mapping the city's hot spots

How USC students can prepare for the hurricane season

Susan Cutter and Cary Mock discuss the current hurricane season

Hurricane Otis intensified rapidly

Cary Mock talks about the rapid intensification of the Pacific hurricane

With more hurricanes approaching, here is what experts suggest to prepare

Brett Robertson and Susan Cutter offer advice on preparing for a hurricane

Hurricane Lee — storms, simulations and society

Cary Mock joins the chat about Hurricane Lee

Hurricane Idalia got much stronger overnight

Cary Mock talks about hurricane intensification

Hawaii is increasingly under siege from disasters

Susan Cutter on recovery in paradise

Feeling the heat in Columbia?

Kirstin Dow heads team to find the hottest areas in Columbia

Ocean heatwave and climate change

Cary Mock discusses our abnormally high ocean temperatures

Why does the US have so many climate catastrophes?

Susan Cutter adds to the conversation about the why the US seems to be much more affected by bad weather than other places

Using GIS to battle blazes

HVRI alum Tracy Whelen introduced some modern fire-fighting tools— maps, graphs and statistics — to help the Columbia-Richland Fire Department.

Climate migration affects the poor

HVRI affiliate Tamara Sheldon’s study on household movements inland after major flooding events was featured in The Post and Courier

Student finds a research home in HVRI

Undergraduate Maggie Kemp's interest in coastal communities led her to HVRI and to a path to grad school

Columbia's sunny streets

Find out how Kirstin Dow's project maps urban heat islands to illustrate climate change

Jackson's SEDAAG paper honored

Sarah Jackson won the 2022 SEDAAG Graduate Honors Student Paper Competition for her paper, “Urban-Rural Tornado Occurrence in the Midwestern & Southern U.S.”  The paper was presented at the annual meeting  November 21–22, 2022, in Atlanta, GA.

AAG highlights USC grad Whelen

Tracy Whelen (M.S. 2020) describes her work as a geospatial consultant.

The long road to recovery

Susan Cutter discusses the difficulties rural Kentucky communities face rebuilding after the recent flash floods.

How famously hot is Columbia?

The Post & Courier reports on Kirstin Dow's work to map differences in how hot SC's capital city is.

Ian's size and slowness a factor

Susan Cutter on the devastation caused by the hurricane in the Washington Post.

Health facilities face risks in severe storms

In the wake of Hurricane Ian, Brett Robertson discusses the disaster preparedness of healthcare organizations on The Conversation.

AccuWeather asks about Ian

HVRI Co-director Susan Cutter spoke to AccuWeather's Bill Wadell about Hurricane Ian's rapid intensification.

Mock on Hurricane Kay

Forbes Magazine spoke to Cary Mock about Hurricane Kay and why it won't make landfall in California.

Gall & Emrich talk risks

Melanie Gall and Chris Emrich enter The Conversation to talk about the risk of wildfires and floods and how homebuyers and renters can act on risk ratings.

Blackwood  at SCEMD

Leah Blackwood is promoting the 2022 South Carolina Hurricane Guide. Leah, the state's new Hurricane Manager, graduated this May with a master's degree in geography.

Three articles appear in June

HVRI alum Tracy Whelen (M.S. 2020) published “A GIS-based risk assessment of the Columbia-Richland (SC) Fire Department," an article based on her thesis, in the May 2022 issue of Fire Engineering.

Sahar Derakhshan (Ph.D. 2020) and current HVRI team members (Leah Blackwood, Margot Habets, Julia F. Effgen, and Susan Cutter) published their work titled "Prisoners of scale: downscaling community resilience measurements for enhanced use," in Sustainability (volume 14, issue 11).

In collaboration with a team from the University of Arizona, HVRI alum Rachel R. McCaster (M.S. 2015) and Susan Cutter co-authored a paper, "Adjusting statistical benchmark risk analysis to account for non-spatial autocorrelation, with application to natural hazard risk assessment," in the recent issue (volume 49, issue 9) of Journal of Applied Statistics. 

Climate Ready Columbia

The State reported on the Climate Ready Columbia conference, including Kirstin Dow's remarks on the importance of maintaining the city's tree canopy to combat the hotter temperatures climate change will bring (April 2, 2022) 

Mock on climate records

The Hamilton Spectator spoke with Cary Mock spoke about the importance of historical climatology.

Dow on UN climate report

Kirstin Dow was featured in the Post & Courier story "UN report underlines a climate change reality: SC has ‘a lot to do’ to adapt" (March 5, 2022) 

SPARC award to Jackson

Ph.D. student Sarah Jackson was awarded a UofSC SPARC award from the UofSC Office of the Vice President for Research to support her dissertation research  on the role of geographic context in tornado risk perception and response (January 2022) 

Dow elected AAAS fellow

HVRI Co-Director Dr. Kirstin Dow was just elected as a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for her work on climate impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. (January 2022)

HVRI team publishes COVID-19 paper

The HVRI team, led by Ph.D. student Sarah Jackson, has published a COVID-19 paper, "Spatial Disparities of COVID-19 Cases and Fatalities in United States Counties," in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The other authors include Sahar Derakhshan, Leah Blackwood, Logan Lee, Qian Huang, Margot Habets, and Susan L. Cutter. (August 16, 2021)

SC's Office of Resilience

HVRI Director Dr. Susan Cutter comments on the newly established state Office of Resilience and its role in future disaster recovery in the Charleston Post & Courier.  (July 12, 2021)

Charleston weather extremes and climate

Dr. Greg Carbone describes changes in weather extremes  — heat, rainfall, tropical systems, and tidal flooding and what this means for Charleston in the Post & Courier.  (June 29, 2021)

New Orleans 1812 hurricane history features Cary Mock's research

A new study in a Historical New Orleans Collection corroborates Cary Mock's research that the 1812 hurricane was the worst storm to hit the city,  not Hurricane Katrina. (June 11, 2021) 

Haz-Dash updated

HVRI just released an updated version of the Socioeconomic Impacts of Natural Hazards web-based dashboard called Haz-Dash. It provides mapped data for the U.S. on hazard losses from 2000–2019 using the SHELDUS database. (June 7, 2021)