Ten Across Conversations

Twenty years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina—still the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history—made landfall in New Orleans. Many mark the storm as the transition point to a new age of extreme weather impacts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency more than tripled the size of its Disaster Relief Fund going forward as a result of Katrina and two other major hurricanes in 2005.   Yet two deca...

Recent Ten Across Conversations episodes have considered how current changes in staffing, research, and responsibilities within federal agencies like FEMA and NOAA may affect disaster readiness and response at the local level. Many cities find themselves pressed to rethink how their own limited resources might secure the information and support necessary to address the growing risks they face.   C...

Local broadcast meteorologists have become more vocal about the evidence of climate change in their communities’ weather in recent years. While some have encountered dramatic pushback , others have found audiences that are eager to understand the causes of recent record-breaking disturbances in familiar weather patterns.   In Phoenix, meteorologist Amber Sullins— formerly a climate skeptic, hersel...

The global climate has undoubtedly changed. Earlier this year, Copernicus, one of the most trusted weather models in the world, calculated that global average temperatures have increased by 1.4°C (2.5°F) since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This seemingly slight increase has had an outsized effect on weather patterns, challenging our ability to predict and prevent disasters resulting from...

This episode deals with some mature topics. Listener discretion is advised.   This week, we’re bringing you the second half of our discussion with author E.A. (Elizabeth) Hanks about her new book, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road . Elizabeth undertook her journey along the iconic Interstate 10 transect to better understand herself and the nation we inhabit—and her experience is a perfe...

Earlier this year, E.A. Hanks—also known as Elizabeth—made her literary debut The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road. Considering its framing, it is no surprise that the book was recommended to Ten Across by many. The 10 documents Elizabeth's re-creation of a fraught childhood road trip taken with her mother in 1996, traveling Interstate 10 from end to end. In retracing her mother’s path, sh...

Previous episodes in our AI series have focused on the evolving features of artificial intelligence itself: its potential to democratize education and to improve city planning and weather forecasting . In this final installment, we examine its costs: the accelerating resource demands of AI and other data-intensive technologies.   Maya Chari, this year’s Ten Across + APM Research Lab data journalis...

Over the course of a calendar year ending in May 2025, the United States absorbed nearly $1 trillion in damages due to extreme weather . This amount, representing 3% of U.S. gross domestic product, was driven by rising insurance costs and a series of disasters primarily concentrated in the Ten Across geography, such as Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the fires in Los Angeles.   More than ever bef...

This is the second episode in our limited series about artificial intelligence trends shaping life in the I-10 corridor and beyond. In this episode we chat with experts from the Ten Across cities of Phoenix, Houston and Jacksonville on the power of digital twins to more seamlessly convene stakeholders around shared goals.     As virtual representations of actual places and systems, digital twins a...

As we were publishing this episode, news from The New York Times broke that Jeremy Greenberg, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster command center has left his post , a day after President Trump said he would wind down the federal agency by November. CBS reported that Tony Robinson, regional administrator of FEMA Region 6, which includes Ten Across states New Mexico, Te...

Last week, news broke that the depletion of groundwater across the Colorado River Basin has been quietly, rapidly outpacing the more visible decline of the river itself. Even as the seven basin states negotiate reduced consumption of river water—inevitably driving dependence toward local aquifers instead—this newly published research shows that the majority ofmost of the water lost throughout the...

Last week, we discussed the emerging digital economy and artificial intelligence sector . Fulfilling the long-term potential of such technological advancements will also require innovation in the ways we anticipate, understand and control their potential consequences.   Take, for example, the revolutionary success of Amazon and other online and same-day delivery retailers. During the COVID-19 pand...

As artificial intelligence capabilities and related infrastructural demands have exploded in recent years , we have been keeping an eye on the implications for the Ten Across region .  To help kick off our summer podcast series on the subject of AI, Arizona State University’s chief information officer Lev Gonick joins us to explore the ways AI is reshaping education, urban development and predicti...

If you follow the evolution of American education, you are surely aware of Arizona State University's transformation under the leadership of Michael Crow. In a little over two decades, Crow has grown ASU into one of the largest and most influential public universities, in terms of overall enrollment, research expenditures, and the adoption of new technologies. In doing so, he has become an interna...

The insurance industry's bottom line offers the clearest, least political evidence that a stable economy and livable communities are increasingly dependent on strategies to address extreme weather impacts. California, Louisiana, and Florida have become harbingers of a spreading issue: disaster-related property losses that continuously exceed underwriting profitability. The resulting gaps in afford...

Given a looming negotiation deadline and recent changes in federal operations, this is an apt time for us to check back in on how things are going with Colorado River management. Frequent listeners and 10X Summit attendees alike will be well acquainted with how clearly this topic illustrates our collective responsibility to be proactive in the face of the "knowable future".   A 100-year-old miscal...

During an on-stage conversation between insurance industry leaders at the 2023 10X Los Angeles Summit, former California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones described the need to mitigate the impacts of climate-driven weather in order for the state to remain insurable. His point has been clearly illustrated by news headlines the last couple years since the summit.     Among the greatest risks to hom...

Place and personal circumstance can play a decisive role in how one perceives the purpose and effectiveness of government. According to a 2021 study , in 2010 an estimated 37% of the U.S. population lived in an unincorporated area—places without municipal government and the services it might provide.      Central Alabama’s Lowndes County, for instance, has a population of just under 10,000 people....

Some curse words are used in this discussion.   In the previous episode , Mitch Landrieu discussed his upbringing, including the impact his father had on race relations in New Orleans and how this informed Mitch’s leadership during some of city’s toughest hours. In the second half of this conversation, we get his unvarnished perspective on changes in the federal approach to the budget, humanitaria...

As a native New Orleanian, Mitch Landrieu knows a thing or two about crisis and recovery. He served as the lieutenant governor of Louisiana through Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and the compounding effects of subsequent storms including Ike and Gustav. In 2010, he was sworn in as mayor of New Orleans—just one month after the Deepwater Horizon explosion undermined the region's efforts to reco...

Phoenix experienced a 113-day streak of temperatures at or over 100 degrees, and an annual average high temperature of 90 degrees in 2024. The city’s extreme heat is the worst in the nation and has equally resulted in staggering increases of climate-related health emergencies and deaths.   Greater resilience to such rising temperatures requires clear, verifiable information that can guide communit...

New Orleans is an extraordinary place that has experienced more than its fair share of adversity. Living below sea level where the mouth of the Mississippi River meets the Gulf Coast, residents have become adept at mitigating a variety of water-related challenges, from the inundation of tropical storms and subsidence to the scarcity issues of saltwater intrusion.   There’s a lot we can learn from...

Compelling communication about risks and necessary actions is of special interest throughout the Ten Across geography. As we continue to follow the course of recent wildfires in the Los Angeles area, we took a closer look at journalism on the ground-- reporters doing their best to convey urgent information at multiple and sometimes personal scales.   On the heels the hottest 12 months in recorded...

In many ways, modern American engineering was born on the Mississippi. In the early days of westward expansion, the continent’s largest river basin presented both a vital resource for transportation, biodiversity and agricultural production and a complicated barrier.   The Army Corps of Engineers was founded in 1802, a year before the Louisiana Purchase. By the mid-1800s, Congress charged the Corp...

Our examination of the conditions that exacerbated the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this month continues today with perspective from author and environmental historian Char Miller.   Southern California received some much-needed rain over this past weekend , allowing firefighters to better contain the Palisades, Eaton, and Hughes fires. At the same time, the burned hillsides now bear much greater...