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Such a decentralized approach to disaster preparedness is something that the Red Cross and others argue for around the world. The idea is that local leaders learn how to prepare for disasters and help their neighbors stay safe during extreme weather events. Such programs are not a replacement for national and international climate action, but they are nonetheless an important part of building climate resilience in many places. By 2017, more than 14,000 people were serving on more than 1,000 local committees around Mozambique, according to the World Bank. "I'm responsible for making sure everyone knows where the high ground is," explains Luis Josine, who has lived in the farming community of Mondiane since 1961 and became the leader of his local disaster committee when it was founded five years ago. The tools and training he received were relatively basic: a handheld radio for weather warnings, an orange vest, a whistle and three flags of different colors. Mondiane is near a river that's prone to flooding. In 2000, dozens of people who lived in this area drowned, Josine says. Today when there is a flood warning, Josine goes through town blowing a whistle and waving a flag. If the flag is blue, it means a flood is likely in two or three days, he explains. If it's yellow, it means one day. If the flag is red, it's an emergency, and people should evacuate immediately. "It is good," he says. "People listen. They know to leave and go up the road." That makes him feel proud, especially since he has noticed that the flood risk in the town of Mondiane is increasing. "We've been noticing the climate changing here since around the year 2000," he explains. "The floods are getting bigger and more severe. The droughts are getting longer." Climate scientists say that's in keeping with trends in the whole region and that extreme weather is expected to get more common as the Earth continues to heat up. 'We Are Really Suffering' More extreme weather can also lead to less resilience. "Disasters put people back into poverty," says Michel Matera, a senior analyst at the World Bank in the capital of Mozambique, Maputo. Without efforts to decrease the damage from floods and other disasters, he says, people will be "continuously trapped into poverty." It's particularly challenging to avoid that vicious cycle when climate change drives more than one disaster in a short period of time In the months after the cyclones drew international attention to Mozambique, another disaster was unfolding more quietly: a drought.
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