PhD Candidate Ryan Miller’s Disaster Diaspora Research Featured on the CBS Evening News
PhD Candidate Ryan Miller’s Disaster Diaspora Research Featured on the CBS Evening News
6/12/2024
This week’s CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell featured a two-part segment exploring the lingering impacts of the 2018 Camp Fire disaster in Paradise, California. The segment highlighted the dissertation work of GGG PhD Candidate Ryan Miller, who shared his work toward mapping relocated and displaced households, as well as his personal connection to the disaster. Ryan’s interview spans both parts of the segment, with part 1 introducing his mapping efforts and part 2 introducing his brother, a fire survivor who chose not to return to Paradise. CBS also published a companion text article which can be viewed here.
While this story focused exclusively on the relocation mapping element of the research, both Ryan and fellow GGG PhD alum Mitch Snyder collaborated on a survey of fire survivors, which is the focus on the last chapter of each of their dissertations. Ryan’s chapter examines factors that might be influencing displaced fire survivors’ decisions about where to live, while Mitch’s chapter explores how displaced residents’ quality of life has changed since the fire, elucidating a previously unexplored ‘missing middle’ of fire survivors who live just outside the burned area and continue to report marked decreases in quality of life indicators compared to those who rebuilt in Paradise or those who relocated more than 50 miles away.
This week’s CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell featured a two-part segment exploring the lingering impacts of the 2018 Camp Fire disaster in Paradise, California. The segment highlighted the dissertation work of GGG PhD Candidate Ryan Miller, who shared his work toward mapping relocated and displaced households, as well as his personal connection to the disaster. Ryan’s interview spans both parts of the segment, with part 1 introducing his mapping efforts and part 2 introducing his brother, a fire survivor who chose not to return to Paradise. CBS also published a companion text article which can be viewed here.
While this story focused exclusively on the relocation mapping element of the research, both Ryan and fellow GGG PhD alum Mitch Snyder collaborated on a survey of fire survivors, which is the focus on the last chapter of each of their dissertations. Ryan’s chapter examines factors that might be influencing displaced fire survivors’ decisions about where to live, while Mitch’s chapter explores how displaced residents’ quality of life has changed since the fire, elucidating a previously unexplored ‘missing middle’ of fire survivors who live just outside the burned area and continue to report marked decreases in quality of life indicators compared to those who rebuilt in Paradise or those who relocated more than 50 miles away.