When Hurricane Zeta made landfall on the Gulf Coast in October, 2.6 million people in the Southeast U.S. were left in the dark. From the Mississippi coast to Atlanta to smaller cities like Anniston, Alabama, people waited—some for days, others for upward of two weeks—in living rooms and kitchens lit by candlelight for their power to return, reliant on the longevity of cellphone batteries and mobile chargers. Caressa Chester, a climate justice program officer at the Foundation for Louisiana who has lived in the state for five years, said that after the worst of Zeta passed, she and her neighbors gathered outside their homes to take stock of the damage and pool their resources. “My power was on and […]