Building climate resilience one community at a time

As a child, I loved jigsaw puzzles. I would pick a piece and almost intuitively know where it needed to go. At 19, I enrolled in a data analysis class, only to discover it was like working on a jigsaw: You take an incomprehensible collection of numbers, organize it into patterns and come away with a meaningful picture. My mum began to describe my work by saying, “Hannah makes pictures out of numbers.” 

Soon, I was able to direct these skills toward my primary interest: the climate crisis. The most important agreement of my generation—the Paris Agreement—had just come into effect and I used code to analyze the text, drew from satellite data to research drought and sea-level rise, and then moved to Canberra to work on federal Australian government policy. 

I believed I needed to make an impact at a national or even international level. Anything smaller felt inadequate for the scale of the crisis. 

That was, until I arrived at Stanford. Let me take you back to my first year as a PhD student: I’m sitting in my dorm room, feeling overwhelmed as I comb through California’s flood insurance records as part of my research.  

For starters, I don’t know much about insurance beyond the fact that the cost is skyrocketing, and parts of California and Australia are becoming so at risk from climate change that they are increasingly uninsurable.

But I don’t own a house or a car, and I’m struggling to understand the real life consequences of premiums, deductibles, and claims.  

Then I see an ad for a summer fellowship at OneShoreline, a climate-focused local government agency, to research flooding and insurance gaps for San Mateo County. Perhaps if I can see how flood insurance works at a bite-sized level, I will understand how to interpret large-scale data. 

As part of my work for OneShoreline, I receive invitations to community events—the first of which is a workshop by State Farm Insurance on how to be “insurance prepared” for disasters. When I arrive, I notice that everyone there is White and looks to be over 65. A woman from State Farm stands at the front of the room offering tips, but they’re directed at homeowners with insurance coverage. None of her advice is applicable to me—or any of my friends—because we are renters. 

Biking home, I wonder how renters are supposed to be “insurance prepared.” I get home and pull up the dataset on flood insurance, curious to see how many renters are included. For San Mateo County, just 24 homes out of more than 120,000 rental units have flood insurance.

I’m shocked. But, as I delve into the fine print of what flood insurance covers for renters, I understand why so few households buy it. It covers only the contents of your home—not a temporary place to live if your home becomes uninhabitable, or the cost to repair your vehicle. 

So renters don’t have flood insurance, but then government aid must make up the difference, right? Wrong.

The second event I attend is a community discussion on flooding in East Palo Alto. An elderly woman with a slight frame explains in Spanish that she was caught off guard by the huge amounts of rainfall last January. She heard that the fire department was providing up to ten sandbags, but you had to fill them yourself and she wasn’t strong enough to fill or carry them. As the rain intensified, it flooded her garage, wrecked her car, and she’s still cleaning out mold.

The organizers ask, “Have you received any financial support?” She says she applied six months ago but still hasn’t heard back from the Federal Emergency Management Agency  (FEMA).

People in the room nod in agreement. It’s clearly a shared experience. 

As I head home, I can’t stop thinking about the difference between the two meetings, only three miles apart. Up the hill, we have fully-insured homeowners who probably would be fine without insurance. Down the road, we have uninsured renters with significant damage to their homes who are being left behind by FEMA.

Given the inadequacy of government aid, I conclude that we urgently need to make sure everyone has insurance. 

Then I meet Raul. 

My colleague Makena invites me on a site visit to a neighborhood in San Bruno, near the San Francisco Airport, that chronically floods. We are here to meet Raul, who had contacted OneShoreline, and the first thing I notice is the 30 sandbags neatly stacked in front of his garage. There’s no rain in the forecast, so they must act as a permanent barricade. 

I learn that Raul is paying off his mortgage, and his bank requires him to purchase flood insurance. I ask if the insurance has helped, and he responds that he made a claim in 2021 after an unprecedented flood. But it didn’t cover everything. 

Now, on top of paying for his mortgage, he has monthly flood insurance bills, which are increasing every year. And he’s worried to file another claim, in case it drives up his premiums even more. 

I no longer know what to think. Yes, it’s risky not to have insurance, but having it can also be a burden. 

What is clear is that these interactions uncovered incorrect assumptions I held about flood insurance, lessons I never would have learned had I stuck to my dataset.

My second year at Stanford, I decide to be a community-engaged researcher. Makena and I return to San Bruno, where we recruit community leaders like Raul to document their experiences with flooding. 

On weekends, I train with my local fire department and join the Community Emergency Response Team. In the event of a flood, I could be called to help fill sandbags for people who can’t, like the elderly woman at the East Palo Alto community meeting. 

My climate advocacy started at UN climate conferences and later at Australia’s Parliament House. Back then, I thought my research needed to be top-down and large-scale to match the scope and urgency of the climate crisis. 

Today, I find myself honing in on the local level, eager to understand how disparate communities experience climate events and how to implement policy solutions. I now know that to build climate resilience, we must listen to those who are experiencing climate impacts most directly and acutely. 

The urgency of the climate crisis requires solutions that can scale at speed, but I remind myself that understanding communities takes sustained effort. By investing in one community at a time, moving at the speed of trust, I hope to make a tangible difference in the lives of the people who inspire my work. 

This story was told live on stage as part of ‘Testing Ground Live! Social Science on Stage’, a storytelling show produced by Stanford Impact Labs in collaboration with The Story Collider. All photos courtesy Hannah.

Hannah Melville-Rea (2023 cohort) is a Knight-Hennessy scholar pursuing a PhD in environment and resources at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. She aspires to work at the intersection of science and policy to minimize the impact of climate hazards on frontline communities. 

Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.