Extreme Weather and Inequality: What’s It All About?

This special section gives you the highlights of a day of discussion about the two issues of Extreme Weather and Inequality. Last fall 200 people came together at Lamar and online to practice listening to each other on these vital topics. Here is how we, the organizers, summed up the day: We did not expect to come here with answers to anything. We came with the possibility that democracy is still important; it’s important to have a conversation, a conversation that represented, or that included representation. People who have been silenced had to be here. We had to have everybody here.

So we want to ask you a question: How many of you all would like to see us have another conversation like this? Raise your hand. Now look around the room: almost everybody is raising their hand. This is another affirmation that what we’ve done here today is a really positive and important thing.

This is not a Beaumont discussion. This Beaumont situation is a biopsy of the entire country—the world, really. And it is precisely a place like Beaumont that is devalued in the context of national and global discussions. Let’s begin to celebrate the diversity that our species represents and see that these crises are forcing us as a species to come together.

For videos and more of the Day of Discussion use the QR code on the right or visit: http:// ancienttothefuture.org/beaumont

Kate Williams directs the Ancient to the Future Project, a small think tank founded in 2022. A descendant of Beaumonters, she is on the faculty at the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign.

Abdul Alkalimat (Gerald McWorter) is a lifetime scholar-activist who helped start the field of Black Studies. A professor emeritus from the University of Illinois, he is an active part of Ancient to the Future.

Below, in 2008 Hurricane Ike storm surge reached 12.54 feet at Sabine Pass and 11.79 feet in Port Arthur. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 was the wettest tropical cyclone in U.S. history. Imelda in 2019 was the 7th-wettest tropical cyclone in U.S. history, dropping more than 40 inches of rain in parts of Jefferson County.

COURTESY OF NAT’L WEATHER SERVICE LAKE CHARLES

60.58 inches makes Harvey the wettest tropical cyclone in US history

The Most Pertinent Topics

DANN BROWN

Ican’t imagine many more pertinent topics to Southeast Texas than developing a conversation on such an important theme: extreme weather and inequality. Southeast Texans have experienced so much, and the frequency of these challenging disasters feels as if it has increased since Hurricane Rita in 2005.

But on a day like today I’m thankful for people like you, who are coming together for this important conversation, who are going to be sharing experiences, sharing reflections, thinking about what it’s going to take so that we’re better prepared for the next storm, the next natural disaster, and so that we’re better prepared and our colleagues around the nation are better prepared for any natural disaster or storm no matter what it may be.

Dann Brown is Lamar University’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Conversations Can Lead to Solutions

DAVE WILLIAMS

Welcome from today’s organizers, the Ancient to the Future Project. Think of us as an activist think tank. A think tank trying to identify problems of the future and search for solutions or partial solutions to those problems. Activist in the sense of bringing together people of similar interests and hoping that a conversation among interested parties will reveal or lead to some solutions to these problems. We chose Beaumont as our first project because we viewed Beaumont as being representative of other places that face possibly similar problems. Solutions here might help elsewhere. Here’s one of the problems that I see facing Beaumont: can Beaumont avoid the fate of today’s West Virginia coal towns?

Dave Williams was born in Beaumont and grew up here and in Austin. After following his uncle into the oil industry, he worked in investment management for 40 years. He attended Beaumont High School.

We in Beaumont Have Become Experts

CHRIS DURIO

Thank you all for this valuable day of discussion on extreme weather and inequality. Unfortunately, we in Beaumont have become experts in extreme weather. From recent hurricanes and tropical storms including Imelda, Harvey, Ike and Rita and the Uri winter storm event to extreme heat and flooding, we are quite familiar with extreme weather in Southeast Texas. The City of Beaumont emergency management does an outstanding job of preparing for and responding to these extreme weather situations. Beaumont has become known to other cities as a city experienced and skilled in handling weather emergencies. We are honored that you chose Beaumont to host this event.

Chris Durio served as a firefighter for 31 years and today serves as Ward 4 city councilperson and Mayor Pro Tem for the City of Beaumont. He graduated from Hebert High School.

Appreciate the Legwork for This Important Discussion

JIMMY BRYAN

Iam the director of the Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast. We are happy to host this event and happy to welcome you to this day of discussion. Before I turn it over to our first panel, I do want to thank especially Kate Williams and Abdul Alkalimat for putting together this program. They have really done the legwork. Most of you have already met with them, and we are happy to host this important program. Thank you again for coming out this morning.

Jimmy L. Bryan, Jr., is Professor of History at Lamar University and he also directs the Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast.