In recent years, one in ten U.S. homes have been damaged or destroyed by weather-related disasters, from flooding to wildfires.

Gary’s house in Paradise, California was one of them. The 2018 Camp Fire burned through the town. It destroyed more than 18,000 homes. All you saw was a fireplace and people suffered a lot. Luckily, people didn’t lose heart. 【小题1】

To build his new house, Gary began to learn about fire-resistant (防火) designs. For a period of time he watched videos and studied stronger materials for his walls and windows. 【小题2】 He also did research on buildings to make sure the newly-built house would be safe. “It’s been difficult, but it has been worth doing it.” Gary says.

Experts are trying to learn from the disaster. After the Camp Fire, researchers searched through the ruins of the buildings in Paradise. They wanted to understand why some buildings survived. 【小题3】 They recreated similar conditions, testing different kinds of building materials and designs to see what survived.

【小题4】 Stronger and safer house designs have been greatly improved in recent years. That information is helping people protect their homes from the unexpected climate future. In many coastal cities, homes have been raised up on stilts (高脚架) to protect themselves from floods and huge waves.

Just as one expert says, “【小题5】”

Little was understood about earthquakes before the 20^th century. However, they have been responsible for millions of deaths and a huge amount of damage to humans over centuries. Earthquakes usually happen on the edges of large sections of the Earth's plates. These plates slowly move over a long period of time. Sometimes the edges, which are called fault lines. can get stuck, but the plates keep moving. Pressure slowly starts to build up where the-edges are stuck and, once the pressure gets strong enough, the-plates will suddenly move causing an earthquake.

Generally before and after a large earthquake there will be smaller earthquakes. The ones that happen before are called foreshocks. The ones that happen after are called aftershocks. Scientists don't really know if an earthquake is a foreshock until the bigger earthquake occurs.

Shock waves from an earthquake that travel through the ground are called seismic wave*. They are most powerful at the center of the earthquake, but they travel through much of the earth and back to the surface. They move quickly at 20 times the speed of sound.

Scientists use seismic waves to measure how big an earthquake is. They use a device* called seismograph to measure the size of the waves. The size of the wave is called magnitude.

To tell the strength of an earthquake, scientists use a scale* called the Moment Magnitude Scale or MMS（it used to be called the Richter scale）. The larger the number on the MMS scale, the larger the earthquake.

You usually won't even notice an earthquake unless it measures at least a 3.5 on the MMS scale. The picture on the right shows some examples of what may happen depending on the scale.

Typhoons are some of the worst storms, usually around the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. Most happen in July, August and September.

【小题1】 When lots of sea water gets hot in the summer sun, it evaporates (蒸发) into the air. This makes the air hotter. When the air gets warm enough, it starts to move higher up into the sky. Then cooler air around it rushes in. It fills the space that is left. After the air gets warmer, it starts to move quickly, making wind. The wind goes in circles and it keeps moving higher in the sky. 【小题2】 And when the wind moves faster than 30 metres a second, a typhoon begins.

A typhoon has two parts. One is called the “eye”. In the eye, the wind does not move so fast. 【小题3】 This is where the strongest winds and hardest rain are.

【小题4】 In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan killed around 6,000 people in Philippines. More people were badly hurt and some others were missing.

【小题5】

●Stay inside. Close all the windows and stay away from them.

●Try to bring all of your things inside. Strong winds could even blow away your bikes!

●Listen to the radio or TV for important information.

●If you’re told to go to a safer place, do it right away.