In Liberty County, one neighborhood has been slowly abandoned as years of flooding and intense rains prompted a spiral of decline. A struggling buyout program shows the complexities and limitations of “managed retreat” from disaster-prone areas.
Erin Douglas / Texas Tribune
Erin Douglas is the climate reporter for The Texas Tribune based in Austin where she covers the impacts of climate change, including extreme heat, drought and hurricanes. Since joining the Tribune in 2020, she has reported on the toll flooding takes on mental health, investigated a chemical fire at an industrial facility, and covered the collapse of Texas’ power grid that led to widespread blackouts across the state. Her coverage of the Texas blackouts in 2021 was recognized by the Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. Erin was previously a business and economy reporter at the Houston Chronicle where she covered labor, energy and the environment. She studied journalism and economics at Colorado State University, and her first newsroom job was interning at The Denver Post, her hometown newspaper.
Posted inEnvironment
This summer is on track to be among Texas’ most extreme
An unrelenting stretch of blistering days amid an ongoing heat wave has put this summer on track to be one of Texas’ most extreme, weather data shows. Although June was only Texas’ 16th warmest on record by average temperature, according to the state climatologist, a long period of very hot days between mid-June and mid-July […]