Storm After the Storm: “She hates to admit that living after Ian feels harder than living through its terror. She can’t help it, especially on the really hard, frustrating days spent at a Federal Emergency Management Agency recovery center obtaining no real answers about the progress of their aid applications and then getting into their black Dodge Nitro, which they’ve been living out of since November.” Brianna Sacks in WaPo: (Gift Article): For some, life after Ian is ‘more tragic than the hurricane itself.’

+ Watch This: The NYT (Gift Article) on The Unlikely New TikTok Influencers: Old-School Watch Dealers. “The draw of these videos has little to do with vintage watches, or even the elite lives they symbolize. What’s irresistible has to do with the world in which these watches are bought and sold. By providing a window into the district, Buckley is taking viewers into one of New York City’s last great kingdoms — an idiosyncratic old world of fast-paced, person-to-person commerce that looks fresh and fascinating to TikTok’s youthful eyes.” (It turns out today’s youth are quite intrigued by that old-fashioned tradition of in-person human interaction.)

+ Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow: “Bird flu — known more formally as avian influenza — has long hovered on the horizons of scientists’ fears. This pathogen, especially the H5N1 strain, hasn’t often infected humans, but when it has, 56 percent of those known to have contracted it have died. Its inability to spread easily, if at all, from one person to another has kept it from causing a pandemic. But things are changing. The virus, which has long caused outbreaks among poultry, is infecting more and more migratory birds, allowing it to spread more widely, even to various mammals, raising the risk that a new variant could spread to and among people.” Zeynep Tufekci in the NYT (Gift Article): An Even Deadlier Pandemic Could Soon Be Here. (Editor’s note: Shit.)

+ Box Brief: Want to track and predict economic conditions? You might want to keep your eye on cardboard.

+ I’ve Callen and I Can’t Get Up: “Lately, emergency call centers in some ski regions have been inundated with inadvertent, automated calls, dozens or more a week. Phone operators often must put other calls, including real emergencies, on hold to clarify whether the latest siren has been prompted by a human at risk or an overzealous device.” Matt Richtel in the NYT (Free Article): ‘My Watch Thinks I’m Dead.’ (If I even approach a ski slope, my phone sends out an alert that I’ve been kidnapped.)