Reconstruction after natural disasters often benefits the wealthy over the interests of poorer survivors desperately seeking food, shelter, and other basics to satisfy fundamental needs. Buoyed by an elevated state of preparedness, the well-off view disasters as opportune moments to escape harm and then to change the public sphere while promoting exciting market opportunities. Such disaster capitalism uses the disruption and fear created by natural catastrophes to attempt to radically reinvent social and economic institutions, preying on the uncertainties of the less fortunate. Two examples of this process occurred in the aftermath of the 2004 Indonesia tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Following the tsunami, thousands living by the sea were not allowed to rebuild, opening the door for resorts, hotels, casinos, and shrimp farms to be built on land once owned by individual families. In Haiti, the World Bank and the United States responded to the crisis by providing loans contingent on privatizing public sector enterprises including education and healthcare. In both Indonesia and Haiti, citizens were not helpless to oppose these changes, and stories of native resistance forced disaster capitalists to revise some of their most ambitious plans.