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A Santa Cruz homeless encampment is partially flooded after a major storm hit northern California on 13 December. Photograph: Nic Coury/AP
Gabrielle Canon
@GabrielleCanon
Thu 16 Dec 2021 06.00 EST
Devastating images and video captured by photojournalists in California have documented the toll
an intense rainstorm – one of the most powerful to hit the state this year – took on a homeless community in the city of Santa Cruz this week. The damage caused by the downpour highlighted the risks that unhoused people face during increasingly extreme weather events.
As dark clouds gathered over the weekend, photojournalist Alekz Londos said he raced out with a megaphone to warn hundreds of people living on the embankment of a river he feared was at risk of flooding. “I was worried they were going to get hypothermia,” he says. He spent the weekend doling out black trash bags meant to serve as makeshift raincoats.
1,500 unhoused LA residents died on the streets during pandemic, report reveals
Read more
The area was eventually pummeled with rain and Londos returned on Tuesday to document the aftermath.
Photos and
drone video posted to
Facebook live capture the devastation: dilapidated tents billowed in the breeze, sopping mattresses, overturned chairs, and other debris strewn through the thick mud. In the video, people can be seen – some soaked up to their knees – trying to salvage what was left of their things, and a woman can be heard calling out “help us”.
“It looked like a nightmare,” Londos says. “I saw people frantically trying to get their stuff together. They looked exhausted. It was cold.”
The scene is a stunning example of the dangers unhoused communities are grappling with as the climate crisis sets the stage for conditions that will hit the most vulnerable hardest.
“In natural disasters, like storms and flooding, the most vulnerable communities, like the homeless, are often forgotten about when talking about who the storms affect,” said Nic Coury, a photographer who captured the disaster for the Associated Press.
A Santa Cruz homeless encampment is partially flooded after a major storm hit northern California on 13 December. Photograph: Nic Coury/AP
Gabrielle Canon
@GabrielleCanon
Thu 16 Dec 2021 06.00 EST
Devastating images and video captured by photojournalists in California have documented the toll
an intense rainstorm – one of the most powerful to hit the state this year – took on a homeless community in the city of Santa Cruz this week. The damage caused by the downpour highlighted the risks that unhoused people face during increasingly extreme weather events.
As dark clouds gathered over the weekend, photojournalist Alekz Londos said he raced out with a megaphone to warn hundreds of people living on the embankment of a river he feared was at risk of flooding. “I was worried they were going to get hypothermia,” he says. He spent the weekend doling out black trash bags meant to serve as makeshift raincoats.
1,500 unhoused LA residents died on the streets during pandemic, report reveals
Read more
The area was eventually pummeled with rain and Londos returned on Tuesday to document the aftermath.
Photos and
drone video posted to
Facebook live capture the devastation: dilapidated tents billowed in the breeze, sopping mattresses, overturned chairs, and other debris strewn through the thick mud. In the video, people can be seen – some soaked up to their knees – trying to salvage what was left of their things, and a woman can be heard calling out “help us”.
“It looked like a nightmare,” Londos says. “I saw people frantically trying to get their stuff together. They looked exhausted. It was cold.”
The scene is a stunning example of the dangers unhoused communities are grappling with as the climate crisis sets the stage for conditions that will hit the most vulnerable hardest.
“In natural disasters, like storms and flooding, the most vulnerable communities, like the homeless, are often forgotten about when talking about who the storms affect,” said Nic Coury, a photographer who captured the disaster for the Associated Press.
A Santa Cruz homeless encampment is partially flooded after a major storm hit northern California on 13 December. Photograph: Nic Coury/AP
Gabrielle Canon
@GabrielleCanon
Thu 16 Dec 2021 06.00 EST
Devastating images and video captured by photojournalists in California have documented the toll
an intense rainstorm – one of the most powerful to hit the state this year – took on a homeless community in the city of Santa Cruz this week. The damage caused by the downpour highlighted the risks that unhoused people face during increasingly extreme weather events.
As dark clouds gathered over the weekend, photojournalist Alekz Londos said he raced out with a megaphone to warn hundreds of people living on the embankment of a river he feared was at risk of flooding. “I was worried they were going to get hypothermia,” he says. He spent the weekend doling out black trash bags meant to serve as makeshift raincoats.
1,500 unhoused LA residents died on the streets during pandemic, report reveals
Read more
The area was eventually pummeled with rain and Londos returned on Tuesday to document the aftermath.
Photos and
drone video posted to
Facebook live capture the devastation: dilapidated tents billowed in the breeze, sopping mattresses, overturned chairs, and other debris strewn through the thick mud. In the video, people can be seen – some soaked up to their knees – trying to salvage what was left of their things, and a woman can be heard calling out “help us”.
“It looked like a nightmare,” Londos says. “I saw people frantically trying to get their stuff together. They looked exhausted. It was cold.”
The scene is a stunning example of the dangers unhoused communities are grappling with as the climate crisis sets the stage for conditions that will hit the most vulnerable hardest.
“In natural disasters, like storms and flooding, the most vulnerable communities, like the homeless, are often forgotten about when talking about who the storms affect,” said Nic Coury, a photographer who captured the disaster for the Associated Press.
