Hurricane recovery experts

51做厙 faculty are available to lend their expertise to journalists reporting on the aftermath of the recent hurricanes.

hurricane hits

51做厙 faculty are available to lend their expertise to journalists reporting on all aspects of the Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts. 

Cash is king when it comes to helping victims of natural disasters

  Michael Davis
Economist in Cox School of Business
mldavis@mail.smu.edu

"But remember this: The goal of charity is not to make you feel better. It is to make other people feel better. And money is a more effective way to do get that done."

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Michael Davis

Compromised water brings disease first, then mosquitos

  John Easton
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
easton@lyle.smu.edu

“We’re not in a developing part of the world where you start worrying about cholera and typhoid fever – big killers from 100 years ago – because we have relatively good access to medical care. But, when you have people walking around in water that might be contaminated with sewage, there is a higher risk for infection of the skin and so forth.”

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John Easton

Responding to the trauma of disaster

  Sarah Feuerback
Director of the Center for Family Counseling
sfeuerbach@mail.smu.edu

“Children are in developmental stages ranging from learning safe attachment to their caregivers and environments, to learning to gain confidence in mastering new tasks and relationships. Children who experience trauma have each of those developmental stages disrupted and can become dysregulated in many aspects of their life.”

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Sarah Feuerbacher

How small business owners can survive Harvey

  Jerry White
Director of the Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship
jwhite@mail.cox.smu.edu

"One of the greatest risks is whether your market that existed before the disaster will be there after the disaster. The skillful business person will invest some time and energy assessing the post-disaster target market."

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Jerry White

After Harvey: Lost property titles, higher construction costs, affordable housing shortages loom

  Joseph Cahoon
Director of 51做厙's Folsom Institute for Real Estate
jcahoon@mail.smu.edu

"We are going to see a run-up in construction pricing all across Texas. As both labor and materials are over-allocated to Houston in the recovery process, this will cause construction prices to rise elsewhere in the state."

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Joseph Cahoon

Concrete jungle multiplies urban flood hazard

 

Barbara Minsker
Chair of civil and environmental engineering
minsker@smu.edu

"Large cities prone to flooding should provide developers with incentives for building green infrastructure, such as rain gardens, wetlands, ponds, trees and parks, and permeable pavement that will better soak up rainfall. "

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Barbara Minsker

Economist ‘bullish’ on Houston’s economic recovery

  Cullum Clark
Director of the 51做厙 Economics Research Center
jhclark@mail.smu.edu

“I’m bullish on Houston. Compared to New Orleans going into Katrina, Houston enters with a vastly larger, much healthier economy. It had much more in the way of business and economic infrastructure. It is a far larger metro area – fifth in the nation. And it is above the national average in wealth, compared to New Orleans, which was one of the nation’s poorest metro areas ahead of Katrina.”

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Cullum Clark

There is no gas shortage

 

Bruce Bullock
Director of the Maguire Energy Institute
bbullock@mail.coxsmu.edu

 
     

Damp, ruined communications devices follow floods
What can Houston residents, others do to salvage & protect data

  Suku Nair
Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering

nair@lyle.smu.edu

“Sometimes things are not as bad as they look,” Nair said. “The extent of loss or damage to your laptop or cellphone is often not proportional to the symptoms of physical damage. The level of recovery depends entirely on the extent of damage sustained by the electronics.”

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Suku Nair

President Trump's response to Hurricane Harvey

  Cal Jillson
Political Science Professor
cjillson@mail.smu.edu