Flash flooding has been tearing up communities across the U.S., with heavy downpours sending creeks and rivers rushing over their banks from Texas to Kentucky, across the Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic states and the Northeast. In Missouri, floodwater swept away a home, and National Guard helicopters had to rescue and evacuate dozens of people from a summer camp.

If this feels like déjà vu after two summers of flash flooding across America, imagine being a community that has had to live through flooding like this again and again.

Residents in Cocke County, Tennessee, were still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Helene’s deadly 2024 rush of mountain floodwater when a new storm turned creeks into raging rivers in June 2026. Officials in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, had been lobbying the state to dredge flood-prone streams when flash flooding in early July 2026 hit the same communities flooded by Hurricane Debby’s remnants two years earlier.

As storms intensify in our warming world, recovery no longer feels permanent in places at risk of disasters. Instead, it’s too often a temporary reprieve before the next disaster hits. Communities are also spending down their savings to rebuild, and they’re finding bank accounts thin when disaster strikes again.

This state of repeated disasters is known as disaster fatigue. As a researcher who works on disaster planning and recovery, I’ve seen how this problem has grown for residents and communities at risk of fires, floods, hurricanes or other natural disasters.

When recovery never really ends

The traditional disaster response model assumes a sequence of preparedness, response,........

© The Conversation