Fothergill, who has been studying the impacts of disasters for almost 30 years, says that “it is becoming less unique for children to experience multiple disasters during their childhoods,” and that the compounding impacts of multiple educational disruptions — from natural disasters to the pandemic — increase the vulnerability of children and challenge their educational continuity. “[Children living through multiple disasters] used to not be something we saw very much,” Fothergill adds. “Now what we’re seeing is, oh, no, in fact, kids from Hurricane Katrina also went through the BP oil spill, or kids who were in one tropical storm were then in a later hurricane.”
Says Anastasia Vanderpool, a junior at UCLA, “I think that a lot of people are starting to feel that there’s no normalcy to be expected from their college experience.” Vanderpool and one of her roommates evacuated from the Palisades fire. “A lot of people have kind of been half jokingly, like, ‘When are we going to have a normal quarter?’”
According to Shannon Gibson, professor of environmental studies, international relations, and political science at the University of Southern California, as climate change accelerates, we will not only see an increased frequency of natural disasters, but also an increased intensity. “In Southern California, we’ve had almost no rainfall since July 2024, and this is typically our rainy season,” Gibson explains. “Now we have this incredibly dry forest and grasslands and brush, and that just creates conditions that are right for the fires to occur and then spread in the way that they have…. We no longer have a predictable fire season; now we just have this perpetual, year-round threat of fire.”
As schools resume classes, displaced families are still figuring out their next moves, and immediate disaster-relief efforts remain in full swing throughout the Los Angeles area. For Pasadena resident Lauren Sandidge, whose two kids’ schools were both leveled in the Eaton fire, figuring out these next steps means staying close to those who have been impacted — teachers and families. “Everyone’s been really trying to just communicate,” Sandidge says. “The message that I’m trying to send my kids is that, even if the building is gone, that’s not what makes the school and the community. It’s the people.”
