A chain of powerful hurricanes in the southeastern US has triggered a harried cycle of brace-and-recover.

The stories of collective spirit there are too important to miss.

But some readers have expressed frustration that South Asia’s epic flooding – renewed in August and affecting some 40 million people – has not been adequately covered. We’re working on getting a reporter to the region. Stories from there will surely show some parallels and may offer new lessons.

Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar, a former Boston-based Monitor staffer now in Mumbai, writes in an email that residents of her city, too, are well known for helping each other. She saw that spirit last Tuesday, when a monsoon rain that coincided with a high tide left many stranded.

 “Within hours, a shared Google spreadsheet of ‘rain hosts’ had been created,” she writes, “and social media hashtags spread to guide the stranded to strangers’ homes.”

(One complicating charge: The reliability of citizen actions allows authorities to skimp on measures to mitigate disaster.)

From rural India come studies in adaptation. Vaishnavi says that she spoke to a professor who has studied the way Hindu pilgrims use the Ganges riverbank near Allahabad each year. A tent city rises there and caters to millions, then comes down. Just as reliably, in flood or in drought, farmers move in to plant and harvest.  

“Studying how people adapt in this area is not only useful for other parts of India but the world,” the professor told Vaishnavi. “Because more of the world is going to look like India than India is going to look like the world.”

Now to our five Friday stories.