Officials from Florida to Missouri are hurriedly rewriting their disaster plans, worried that crowding large groups of evacuees in shelters could spread coronavirus during what’s expected to be a busy hurricane and tornado season.
Firefighters in Colorado are working social distancing into their strategy for tackling long-duration wildfires. And New York City is spending $55 million on air conditioners for low-income seniors in public housing, to keep them away from cooling centers that draw hundreds during heat waves.
Though President Donald Trump sees the summer as a time of economic revival, emergency management officials fear a terrible combination of natural disasters could lead to a fresh spread of the coronavirus — and that the pandemic could, in turn, set back their work. Continue reading.