Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home Podcast with Justine Calma cover art

Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home

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Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home

By: Justine Calma
Narrated by: Justine Calma
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About this listen

 Some disasters arrive all of a sudden: a wave, a quake, a raging fire. Others are slow-moving, even subtle. Water where it didn’t used to be. Heat that burns through the night. Trees gone white. But no matter what form it takes, disaster is a daily reality for more and more of us, at once ordinary and shattering. In this series from Vox Media and Audible Originals, we visit six communities across the US that are contending with disaster. We go beyond crisis coverage to explore the deeper questions: When disaster hits, what forces determine who stays, who goes, and what we do with what’s left? How did we get here in the first place? How far does our sense of community extend? Once land, cities, and buildings are repaired, who do we become? How do we keep remaking our sense of home?©2023 Vox Media, Inc (P)2023 Audible Originals LLC Environment Natural Disasters Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science
Episodes
  • Hell or High Water Trailer

    Hell or High Water Trailer
    Apr 6 2023
    Some disasters arrive all of a sudden: a wave, a quake, a raging fire. Others are slow-moving, even subtle. Water where it didn’t used to be. Heat that burns through the night. Trees gone white. But no matter what form it takes, disaster is a daily reality for more and more of us, at once ordinary and shattering. In this series from Vox Media and Audible Originals, we visit six communities across the US that are contending with disaster. We go beyond crisis coverage to explore the deeper questions: When disaster hits, what forces determine who stays, who goes, and what we do with what’s left? How did we get here in the first place? How far does our sense of community extend? Once land, cities, and buildings are repaired, who do we become? How do we keep remaking our sense of home?
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    2 mins
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  • Episode 1: When Your Land Disappears — Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana

    Episode 1: When Your Land Disappears — Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana
    Apr 13 2023
    Descendants of Biloxi, Chitimacha, and Choctaw Indians, who’ve lived just off Louisiana’s coast for more than a century, are losing their homes. Isle de Jean Charles is disappearing under the water faster than most anyone imagined. Why? Environmental degradation has been fueled by government and industry officials who once saw value in this land, and then changed their minds. Now, residents are being told it’s time to move. Not everyone is willing to go.
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    35 mins
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  • Episode 2: Heat Divides — Phoenix, Arizona

    Episode 2: Heat Divides — Phoenix, Arizona
    Apr 13 2023
    Phoenix, Arizona, is America’s hottest major city, and temperatures in low-income communities can be 10 degrees higher than in wealthy neighborhoods that are minutes away. After yet another record-breaking summer of heat-related deaths and hospitalizations, we might finally have reached a moment of truth: communities and officials in this desert city are making moves to dial down the heat. But will their efforts work? This episode contains mature themes and language.
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    31 mins
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Justine Calma
Additional Credits
Justine Calma

About the Creator and Performer

Justine Calma has reported on climate change on the ground in four continents since covering the adoption of the landmark Paris agreement in 2015. Her reporting calls out environmental injustice and scrutinizes solutions. She's now a science reporter covering energy and the environment at Vox Media’s The Verge.

About the Team

Host: Justine Calma
Producers: Rider Alsop, Charlotte Silver, Travis Larchuk, and Julie Carli
Editor: Lissa Soep
Managing producer: Golda Arthur with assistance from Lissa Soep
Sound designer and engineer: Adriene Lilly
Fact-checker: Serena Solin
Theme music: Brandon McFarland
Executive producer and vice president of audio at the Vox Media Podcast Network: Nishat Kurwa
Audible Executive Producer: Rachel Hamburg
Production Coordinators: Phara Joseph and Mariela Ferrer
Head of Production at Audible Studios: Mike Charzuk
Business Affairs Lead at Audible: Zack Ross
Legal Affairs Lead for Audible: Jessica Mauceri and Rachel Kiwi
Head of US Content: Rachel Ghiazza
Head of Audible Studios: Zola Mashariki
Special thanks to: Dave Blum, Michelle Postelle, and Kelsey Keith

Featured Article: 6 Works of Climate Nonfiction to Listen to This Earth Day


Healing the planet will take all of us—and the more we listen, the better equipped we are to help. In this roundup of recent nonfiction, including documentary podcasts and major audiobooks from leading climate experts, the realities of the climate crisis are paired with immersive storytelling and creative solutions to fuel hope and action in listeners. Discover the latest science and captivating storytelling to fuel action and hope.

Featured Article 6 Works of Climate Nonfiction to Listen to This Earth Day
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Environmental concerns have long been my primary civic concerns, but too often I, as a pretty well informed activist layperson, find environmental reporting unlistenable. From news to podcasts to books, too often my environmental anxiety is counterproductively triggered when writers / editors / producers dig data holes of gloom and doom that I cannot bear to consider for any length of time, or they close with a fakely / manipulatively positive note, or they ring a false note of dispassion, or are egregiously superficial, or what have you. This HELL OR HIGH WATER series, however, with its combination of important content and great presentation (writing, production, narration), provides a uniquely listenable experience that for me was the opposite of triggering. It directly engages extremely serious and important content, but the focus on survivors' experiences is like a hand extended through the dark, showing that we are (I am) not alone. Great as this series is, I would love a companion series to it that flips the focus more to the systemic and individual roadblocks to would-be environmental cures. Some calling out onto the carpet, holding feet to the fire, perhaps. Talk to the people who won't talk to you (yes... I know... those pesky laws protecting their privacy and mine... for starters). Pull answers from public agencies: why do they not answer to public demand for answers, and how do they get away with it? Not to mention individual greed, fear, sloth, and sometimes plain old evil. Investigate it. Get into it. Really call out the roadblocks to curing environmental malfeasance. You could use all these anecdotes from Hawaii to California to the East Coast all over again, pivoting the perspective. But anyway this series is just great as it is. Thanks and congrats to its creators.

Important content, uniquely listenable

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No review title I've thought of is capable of expressing the content importance of this podcast series. The podcast presents hard facts about the impact of climate change on personal and community lifestyles in America. There is much more that could be presented in additional episodes. The podcast format is quite effective as a means of bringing home the personal reality of climate change. I highly recommend this series.

THOUGHT PROVOKING

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