Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Podcast: Natural disasters have mental and physical implications

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Steve Marcus

Smoke from California wildfires obscures the morning sun in Henderson Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021.

Editor’s note: We interviewed experts, policy makers and community organizers about how climate change is impacting the mental and physical health of residents. These conversations will be presented in “Heating Up,” a podcast with the Sun’s Arleigh Rodgers. At the end of the series, the interviews will be presented in story form. Enjoy.

In the fourth episode of “Heating Up,” the Sun’s Arleigh Rodgers talks with Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, a UNLV senior who conducts policy research for Brookings Mountain West that focuses heavily on climate policy.

Solano-Patricio has a personal connection to the crisis: In October 2020, she was forced to evacuate her home in California because of the wildfires in Irvine, Calif.

She transitioned living in an Airbnb while working and taking classes remotely. That residence was close to the mountains, she said, where she could “see the scorched earth from (her) window.”

“To be in a situation where you are feeling the heat, smelling the burning, that definitely activates some feelings inside, right, because it’s all sensory,” she said. “So fearing death, fearing being stuck, fearing being alone, that was really terrifying.”

The fires triggered Solano-Patricio’s post-traumatic stress disorder, something she was diagnosed with in 2018. Solano-Patricio described evacuating from the wildfires as well as policy solutions to climate change.

Take a listen:

Las Vegas Sun

Heating Up: Natural disasters have mental and physical implications

In the fourth episode of “Heating Up,” the Sun’s Arleigh Rodgers talks with Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, a UNLV senior who conducts policy research for Brookings Mountain West that focuses heavily on climate policy.