The ups and downs of a tumultuous year
The last 12 months have a been a roller coaster for the LGBT community. Still suffering a grief hangover from Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in the November 2016 presidential election, when faced with the reality of his inauguration in January, progressives of all stripes stood up to fight back against what many see as a regressive and oppressive regime.
From the women’s marches that saw millions of people take to the streets of cities across the country on Jan. 21, to the Pride parades and marches in June and September; from the crushing results of 2016 election to the renewal of November 2018 when progressive candidates rebounded and at least openly-transgender candidates won office — we look back at six of the stories that shaped our world in 2017.
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Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall near Corpus Christi in the early morning hours of Aug. 25 as a category 4 storm, was the first major hurricane to come ashore in the United States since Wilma in 2005. It is the costliest cyclone on record, having inflicted some $200 billion in damage, mostly in the Houston area.
Although Harvey weakened fairly quickly after coming ashore, it settled in over the Houston/Southeast Texas area where over the course of a four-day period it dumped up to, in peak accumulation areas, 60 inches of rain, while more widespread areas received up to 40 inches.
The storm caused catastrophic flooding in Houston and across Southeast Texas, leaving at least 89 people dead, billions of dollars in damage and more than 300,000 Texans without electricity. Some 30,000 people were displaced by the storm and Harvey’s impact on the Gulf Coast refineries created a temporary gas shortage that sent prices soaring and created long lines of panicky motorists waiting to fill their tanks.
While the Dallas/Fort Worth area was spared the wrath of Harvey, many local residents found themselves able only to watch from afar as family, friends and other fellow Texans struggled to keep their metaphorical — and sometimes, actual — heads above the ever-rising flood waters. But one Dallas woman refused to just stand by and watch.
Karen McCrocklin created a GoFundMe page to collect cash donations while at the same time she set about personally collecting and delivering everything from boats for the Houston Fire Department to use in search and rescue efforts in the flooded areas, to food, water, clothing and more that the flood victims needed.
McCrocklin and other volunteers made numerous trips to the Houston area in the days just after Hurricane Harvey to deliver supplies, connecting with Houston Fire Department Capt. Iris Rodriguez to get those boats and other supplies where they were needed most. McCrocklin also helped organize crews of volunteers who returned later to help residents clear out their flood-damaged homes and get ready to start over.
The GoFundMe campaign funds that were not spent on immediate needs were used to help a new lesbian-led nonprofit organization, Texas Leaders Recovery Squad, that focuses on ongoing disaster relief efforts.
Within weeks of Hurricane Harvey, on Sept. 6, Category 5 Hurricane Irma skirted Puerto Rico before weakening and hitting Florida. The storm killed at least 75 people, and caused between $42 and $65 billion.
Then came Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20 as a Category 4 storm. Maria left at least 66 dead and Puerto Rico in ruins, still struggling to regain some semblance of normalcy.
President Trump, who is at best skeptical of the science of climate change, has come under intense criticism for his lackadaisical response to the devastation in Puerto Rico and for seeming to not know that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and its residents U.S. citizens.
While climate change did not cause these three terrifyingly strong storms to form, consensus among scientists is that the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and warmer oceans, made those storms far more destructive than they would have been in previous decades, according to CNN.

— Tammye Nash