Natural disasters seem to be occurring more frequently in recent years and create a backlog for property and casualty insurers who want to ensure policyholders recover and stay ahead of the next event. Insurers are increasing their reliance on technology both pre- and post-catastrophe to support their policyholders.

(TNS) — Sixty-three-year-old Ernest Foss had swollen legs and couldn’t walk. Vinnie Carota, 65, was missing a leg and didn’t have a car. Evelyn Cline, 83, had a car but struggled to get in it without help.

Dorothy Herrera, 93, had onset dementia and her husband Louis, 86, couldn’t drive anymore. And 78-year-old John Digby was just feeling sick the morning of the Camp Fire when he refused a neighbor’s offer to drive him to safety.

(TNS) - Leigh Bailey, 54, was awakened not by her phone, warning her about an incoming fire that would soon destroy her town, but by a neighbor pounding on her door.

Bailey had no idea how bad the fire was about to become. So she went back inside around 9:15 a.m., had a cup of tea and ate some coffee cake and slowly packed some clothes and her dog and cat before heading out of her home in Magalia, just north of Paradise.

Fire investigators in Northern California say they found the human remains of 6 more individuals, bringing the death toll to at least 48 people who have died in the wildfire that burned through the town of Paradise with shocking speed, making the Camp Fire the deadliest wildfire in state history.

Fire crews are working to fight that blaze, along with another large wildfire in Southern California, where at least two deaths have been reported.

More than 1 million people in the Carolinas were ordered to evacuate days before Hurricane Florence hit landfall.

Government officials order coastal evacuation even when it’s sunny at the beach with not a cloud in the sky and no hint of the ominous threat thousands of miles away other than from satellite images. People who know I study hurricane evacuations have often asked me to explain this curious decision.

In the end, evacuation planning is part science, part skill based on experience, and part luck.

Tuesday marks the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The tragic loss of around 3,000 lives that day is still impacting the way first responders prepare for and respond to emergencies.

In 2003, President George W. Bush directed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to create a nationwide framework for emergency preparation and response, which is now known as the National Incident Management System.

Superior Fire Chief Steve Panger said it’s creation showed the federal government recognized that state and local responders are the first line of defense.