ExxonKnews
April 14, 2026
Super Typhoon Sinlaku is slamming the Northern Marianas Islands with life-threatening winds, rain, and floods. The monster storm came remarkably early in the year, hitting U.S. territories in the west Pacific that have long been on the very frontlines of climate change with the least political clout to mitigate the crisis and access resources when it strikes.
As climate-fueled extreme weather events become more destructive, the Trump administration is dismantling the government agency whose mission is to “hel[p] people before, during and after disasters.” While diminishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and politicizing the distribution of aid, the federal government is doing everything in its power to boost reliance on fossil fuels and to undo regulations on their climate-warming emissions.
“Disasters are absolutely shrouded in injustices from start to finish,” Dr. Samantha Montano told me when we spoke last week, before Sinlaku made landfall. Montano is a self-described disasterologist — a term she uses to describe anyone who studies disasters, from historians and psychologists to sociologists and emergency managers, like herself. After helping gut and rebuild houses in the fallout of Hurricane Katrina and then assisting with recovery efforts during the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, she went on to study the policies underlying emergency management in a quest to make the system more efficient and equitable.
