Storms strike! When natural disasters take place there is always an a consequence. The survivors of dangerous storms have to rebuild their lives. There is a new beginning after the storm. You only have two decisions in life. You can choose to live or you can choose to die. These are the survivors who chose to persevere through devastating tragedy, to live!

Chapter 1 provides a short overview of issues Congress may consider in its oversight of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) federal assistance during the 2017 hurricane season (e.g., Harvey, Irma, and Maria) and other disasters (e.g., fires in California). In 2017, Hurricanes Irma and Maria damaged much of the electricity grids' transmission and distribution systems in USVI and Puerto Rico. Chapter 2 provides information on federal support for restoring the electricity grids in Puerto Rico and USVI and factors affecting this support. In 2017 two major hurricanes -- Irma and Maria -- caused extensive damage throughout Puerto Rico. Chapter 3 describes FEMA's Public Assistance spending in Puerto Rico and oversight efforts of federal recovery funds, and initial challenges with the recovery process. Chapter 4 provides information on DRF funding provided to Puerto Rico as a result of assistance associated with a major disaster. The primary focus of the territorial and federal efforts thus far has largely been on restoring electric power in Puerto Rico as reported in chapter 5. In September 2017, two major hurricanes -- Irma and Maria -- struck the USVI, causing billions of dollars in damage to its infrastructure, housing, and economy. Chapter 6 describes the status of FEMA's Public Assistance program funding provided to the USVI in response to the 2017 hurricanes as of October 1, 2018, and the USVI's transition to implementing the Public Assistance alternative procedures in the territory. Chapter 7 provides information on DRF funding provided to the U.S. Virgin Islands as a result of assistance associated with a major disaster. Chapter 8 provides information on DRF funding provided to Florida as a result of assistance associated with a major disaster. Chapter 9 provides a brief overview of the major disaster declaration process and federal assistance programs potentially available to those affected by the 2019 flooding in the Midwest. Following Hurricane Katrina, Congress required FEMA to establish advance contracts for goods and services to enable the government to quickly and effectively mobilize resources in the aftermath of a disaster. Chapter 10 assesses FEMA and USACE's use of advance contracts, FEMA's planning and reporting of selected advance contracts, and challenges, if any, with FEMA's use of these contracts. Chapter 11 addresses the extent to which federal agencies obligated funds on post-disaster contracts in response to the these events, and selected agencies experienced challenges in the planning of selected contracts.

A timely ethnography of how Indonesia's coastal dwellers inhabit the "chronic present" of a slow-motion natural disaster Ice caps are melting, seas are rising, and densely populated cities worldwide are threatened by floodwaters, especially in Southeast Asia. Building on Borrowed Time is a timely and powerful ethnography of how people in Semarang, Indonesia, on the north coast of Java, are dealing with this global warming-driven existential challenge. In addition to antiflooding infrastructure breaking down, vast areas of cities like Semarang and Jakarta are rapidly sinking, affecting the very foundations of urban life: toxic water oozes through the floors of houses, bridges are submerged, traffic is interrupted. As Lukas Ley shows, the residents of Semarang are constantly engaged in maintaining their homes and streets, trying to live through a slow-motion disaster shaped by the interacting temporalities of infrastructural failure, ecological deterioration, and urban development. He casts this predicament through the temporal lens of a "meantime," a managerial response that means a constant enduring of the present rather than progress toward a better future-a "chronic present." Building on Borrowed Time takes us to a place where a flood crisis has already arrived-where everyday residents are not waiting for the effects of climate change but are in fact already living with it-and shows that life in coastal Southeast Asia is defined not by the temporality of climate science but by the lived experience of tidal flooding.