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The Paperwork

Form of Disaster

By Maya Jiménez— April 22, 2026

Feature image for article: Form of Disaster

Seven days after Super Typhoon Sinlaku sat over Saipan for three days straight, a woman on Tinian still couldn't get her mother to dialysis. The ferry was suspended. Roads to port were blocked. The nearest hospital was a hundred and twenty-five miles across open ocean. Somewhere in the federal system, her application for help was waiting on a form that asked her to name her county.

Tinian doesn't have a county. It has 2,044 people, thirty-nine square miles, and a health clinic with no surgical capability. The instruments sent to measure the disaster were built for a different country.

The Paperwork

Form of Disaster

Seven days after Super Typhoon Sinlaku sat over Saipan for three days straight, a woman on Tinian still couldn't get her mother to dialysis. The ferry was suspended. Roads to port were blocked. The nearest hospital was a hundred and twenty-five miles across open ocean. Somewhere in the federal system, her application for help was waiting on a form that asked her to name her county.

Tinian doesn't have a county. It has 2,044 people, thirty-nine square miles, and a health clinic with no surgical capability. The instruments sent to measure the disaster were built for a different country.

Maya Jiménez

Maya Jiménez, 34, is a Polk Award-winning narrative journalist covering climate adaptation, environmental justice, and community resilience. Born in Guatemala City and raised in Oakland, she specializes in collaborative journalism that centers frontline voices, spending months embedded with communities facing climate impacts.

The Silence

Two Clocks

By David Kern— April 22, 2026

A Category 5 super typhoon hit U.S. soil on April 14. Five hundred miles wide. Fifty hours of destructive wind. By April 17, the hospital was running on generators and the power was out islandwide. By April 22, the disaster declaration was still unsigned, six crew members were still missing, and the boil water notice was still in effect. Two clocks ran during those thirteen days. One tracked the storm. One tracked who was paying attention. The storm kept going.

The Silence

Two Clocks

By David Kern— April 22, 2026

A Category 5 super typhoon hit U.S. soil on April 14. Five hundred miles wide. Fifty hours of destructive wind. By April 17, the hospital was running on generators and the power was out islandwide. By April 22, the disaster declaration was still unsigned, six crew members were still missing, and the boil water notice was still in effect. Two clocks ran during those thirteen days. One tracked the storm. One tracked who was paying attention. The storm kept going.

One Voice

Seventy Thousand Dollars and a Generator Named Gerald

One Voice

Seventy Thousand Dollars and a Generator Named Gerald

The Count

Sinlaku / Saipan: A Ledger

185 mph sustained winds / 43,285 total population of Saipan.

896 millibars central pressure / 1 hospital on the island.

20+ inches of rainfall / 0 reported deaths.

Category 5 intensity / 3 days of peak U.S. media coverage.

1,000+ people sheltered / 2,044 total population of Tinian.

Second strongest early-season Pacific typhoon since 1953 / second major typhoon to hit these islands since 2023.

82–84°F sea surface temperatures / $0 proposed federal climate research funding.

The Count

Sinlaku / Saipan: A Ledger

185 mph sustained winds / 43,285 total population of Saipan.

896 millibars central pressure / 1 hospital on the island.

20+ inches of rainfall / 0 reported deaths.

Category 5 intensity / 3 days of peak U.S. media coverage.

1,000+ people sheltered / 2,044 total population of Tinian.

Second strongest early-season Pacific typhoon since 1953 / second major typhoon to hit these islands since 2023.

82–84°F sea surface temperatures / $0 proposed federal climate research funding.

TAKE NOTE

Storm width: 450 miles of tropical-storm-force winds, nearly twice the size of 2023's Typhoon Mawar, wide enough to cover the entire island chain at once.

Power grid: 11,000+ homes without electricity on Saipan, 700+ on Tinian, water pressure low to none, boil-water notice issued territory-wide.

Hospital flooding: Commonwealth Health Center, 86 beds serving all of CNMI, took severe water damage during the storm.

Still rebuilding: Northern Marianas College, 85% destroyed by Super Typhoon Yutu in 2018, had just begun its $100 million reconstruction.

On record: "Resilience should never be mistaken for self-sufficiency." CNMI Delegate Kimberlyn King-Hinds, remarks to the U.S. House floor.

Also Unseen

We kept a list through early 2026. Not the major stories, which find their own audiences. The other ones: events that killed people, shattered records, or redrew legal boundaries in places the global news cycle couldn't hold for longer than a couple of days.

Six cards below. Each compressed to roughly the space the world actually gave it. You can't hold 280 dead across four countries in forty words. You also can't hold them in a wire alert that runs for a single cycle and vanishes. We didn't invent the compression. We're reproducing it. If the format feels inadequate, that's because it is. So was the coverage.

Also Unseen

We kept a list through early 2026. Not the major stories, which find their own audiences. The other ones: events that killed people, shattered records, or redrew legal boundaries in places the global news cycle couldn't hold for longer than a couple of days.

Six cards below. Each compressed to roughly the space the world actually gave it. You can't hold 280 dead across four countries in forty words. You also can't hold them in a wire alert that runs for a single cycle and vanishes. We didn't invent the compression. We're reproducing it. If the format feels inadequate, that's because it is. So was the coverage.

Southern Africa

Adobe Homes Melted After a Few Days' Rain

December through February, flooding across Mozambique, Eswatini, South Africa, and Zimbabwe killed over 280 people. Destroyed 717,000 hectares of crops. Rainfall ran 40% above pre-industrial baselines. Nearly 90% of Mozambican homes are sun-dried earth. When the water came, they dissolved.

South Australia

Population 262, Median Age 57, Temperature 50°C

On January 29, Andamooka, a remote opal-mining town with no police station, no local council, and one Royal Flying Doctor clinic, recorded 50°C. The next day Port Augusta matched it. Farthest south that temperature has ever been officially measured in Australia.

Arctic Ice

Record Low Again. Then the Website Went Dark.

Arctic winter sea ice hit its second consecutive record-low maximum on March 15, falling 1.36 million square kilometers below average. Roughly twice the area of Texas, gone. That same month, NSIDC suspended its Sea Ice Today updates after federal funding wasn't renewed.

Midwest Storms

Six-Inch Hail Fell on a Working-Class Town

March 10: an EF-3 tornado carved 36 miles through Kankakee County, Illinois, killing three people including an elderly couple. The same system dropped six-inch hailstones, potentially a state record. By April 19, NWS Chicago had issued 128 severe warnings. A full year's worth before spring ended.

Bonaire Ruling

A Court Ruled That Climate Neglect Is Discrimination

On January 28, The Hague ruled the Netherlands discriminated against Bonaire's residents by failing to protect them from climate consequences already underway. Parts of the island may be underwater by 2050. Plaintiff Jackie Bernabela, in tears: "We are no longer second-class citizens. Equality."

Western Snowpack

They Went to Measure Snow. There Was None.

April 1 snowpack across the Western U.S. fell to its lowest level on record. Sixty-five percent below normal. Eight states set all-time lows. At Phillips Station, California, scientists showed up for the annual snow survey and found bare ground. Lake Powell could lose hydropower by December.