The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "storms" ...
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MSD
Corruption in the Louisville Metropolitan Sewer District. The MSD oversees sewer treatment, storm water management and Ohio river flood control for the several hundred thousand people who live in Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky. Throughout the investigation, The Courier-Journal discovered that MSD board members owned companies that they were doing business with the agency they served, excessive bonuses to top officials, and a secret $140,000 lawsuit with an HR chief when he threatened a whisteblower lawsuit.
Tags: Louisville Metropolitan Sewer District; MSD; Jefferson County; Kentucky
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During fatal storm rescue, bravery in the 'fog of war'
Michael Kenwood, an EMT with the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad, was the only rescuer killed in the United States during Hurricaine Irene. This story examines the uncertain and confusing circumstances surrounding his death.
Tags: Hurricaine Irene; Michael Kenwood, EMT; Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad
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Green Energy: Contracts, Connections and the Collapse of Solyndra
Beginning in March, the Center's Ronnie Greene and ABC's Matthew Mosk and Brian Ross exposed flaws in the Department of Energy's billion-dollar spending spree, revealed deep links between Obama campaign bundlers and energy contracts and foreshadowed the financial and political storm that later engulfed Solyndra. Our reporting for "Green Energy: Contracts, Connections and the Collapse of Solyndra" broke ground before Solyndra's meltdown, and went well beyond the company in revealing a web of connections entangling a department lauded for its innovation. Working as full-reporting partners, our stories tied major Obama donors to lucrative green energy contracts for everything from electric cars to diesel substitutes. After over a year of reporting, we produced 50,000 words for the Center's website, thousands more on ABC's site and broadcasts on World News Tonight, Good Morning America and Nightline. Our stories, built from FOIA requests that yielded thousands of contract, financial and ethics documents, served as a template for national media reports that followed.
Tags: contracts; green energy; Obama; green energy; spending
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Hell Hole
The AZ Department of Corrections stuck a psychotic prisoner on the cusp of being released into a single person cell with a first-degree killer serving a lengthy sentence. The result: The killer mutilated and murdered the seriously mentally ill man, who was serving a short sentence for climbing up a power pole during an electrical storm.
Tags: Prison; Mentally Ill
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Infinite Monster
The book exposes the politics of recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and explores the destitution of loss and the revelry of rebirth.
Tags: Hurricane Ike; huricane; Texas coast; storm
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Florida's Insurance Nightmare
Six years after eight hurricanes ripped across Florida, state residents still struggle to recover from the storms' legacy - a wrecked property insurance market. Exorbitant premiums, the highest in the world, have soured the state's struggling economy, killed real estate sales and forced families from their homes. Homeowners were told that unless they paid even more, no insurance company would take their hurricane risk. The Herald-Tribune showed that is a lie. Floridians have been lied to about why there is a crisis, where their money is going, and whether they're even protected against storm losses. Public policy has been corrupted by fiction spun by the insurance industry and its supposed regulators. Billions of dollars desperately needed for the next disaster have been siphoned offshore. And millions of homeowners are left to entrust their financial security on a system rigged to extort profit. To expose the hidden truth of Florida's insurance crisis, St. John cultivated key sources deep within every aspect of the insurance industry and sought massive amounts of financial and policy data from multiple state and national entities. When it became obvious Florida's crisis was manipulated from afar, she traveled to Bermuda and Monte Carlo to discover the hidden players truly in charge.
Tags: home insurance; property insurance; Florida; hurricane; real estate; insurance premiums; homeowners; Bermuda; Monte Carlo; state regulators; anti-trust law; State Farm
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Utility Ethics Flap
When the top lawyer for Indiana's utility regulatory commission suddenly quit his job to work for the state's largest utility (Duke Energy Corp.), reporters smelled a rat and demanded state records to see if the two organizations had been engaged in improper conversations. The lawyer in question, Scott Storms, had been the chief administrative law judge for the state, ruling on numerous cases involving the utility, notably its new $2.9 billion power plant. What they found was eye-opening. Mr. Storms had been in talks with the utility for many months about a job, even as he was ruling on cases involving the company, and approving huge cost over-runs for a new power plant. The matter was of deep public interest, because the state agency rules on utility rates paid by all state residents and businesses, and it's dealings were compromised by possible undue influence.
Tags: State Finances; Scott Storms; Ethics; Utility; State Records; Duke Energy Corporation
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Snow Removal
After the storm in January 2009, Southern Illinois University Carbondale was left to cleanup. The job brought "complaints from students, faculty, and staff" and the conditions were "hardest on the disabled". This story looks at the "Americans with Disabilities Act" and whether the university violated it. Further, it examines the concerns from "disabled students, faculty, and staff that had a very tough time maneuvering around campus because the sidewalks were not properly cleaned up".
Tags: college; education; campuses; storms; snow; removal; winter; criticize; school
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China Storms Africa
China's drive for resources in Africa has depleted one sub-Saharan country after another is wreaking havoc environmentally and morally as corruption is on the rise and workers are being exploited.
Tags: Congo; Zambia; mining; Eh; pathogen; Mozambique; timber; copper; World Health Organization
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Storm World
"In the wake of Katrina, the book follows the careers of leading scientists on either side of the argument over the relationship between hurricanes and global warming, tracing how the media, special interests, politics, and the weather itself have skewed and amplified what was already a fraught scientific dispute."
Tags: global warming; hurricane; Katrina; environment; science; politics; media;