Carolina On Our Minds. Science Says Stronger Storms Are The Norm.
A Shocking Amount of Rain Brought Utter Devastation To Appalachia & Beyond.
Our hearts are with all the communities impacted by Hurricane Helene in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper called it, “one of the worst storms in modern history.”
The storm stretched more than 500 miles from Florida to the Southern Appalachians.
The French Broad River in Asheville, North Carolina, rose about 12 feet in 12 hours during the height of Helene and set a new flood stage record.
This community, and the surrounding areas, were hit hard with massive, unprecedented flooding, mudslides, and tornadoes. What’s striking is not just the magnitude of the storm but how quickly it became a dangerous situation for the community with such little notice.
The storm highlighted the aging infrastructure that’s not prepared for more frequent and extreme weather events. That’s not just an Asheville problem but one many communities now face throughout the country and the world.
Most people there are now on Day 6 of no power, no water coming out their taps, and very little cell phone reception. Yes, the community is helping one another and resources are beginning to trickle in, but I imagine most people there are in need of a good cry, a hot shower, and a warm meal.
Businesses and schools are closed. Farms have been washed out. Many outlying communities are still inaccessible. Gas has been in short supply. Not all households are equipped with the necessary supplies needed such as power tools or 5-gallon jugs to fill up with water. It’s a big, big mess with a lot of uncertainty for the future of the region.
Like so many places before it, I hope Asheville will rebuild and invest in their infrastructure so that they can withstand this new reality.
It’s also important to remember that hundreds of industrial facilities with toxic pollutants were in the path of Hurricane Helene.
It may take weeks or months to fully assess the impact of industrial damage or leaks, and residents may not hear about releases of toxic chemicals into water or the air for some time, if they find out at all.
One study found evidence of two to three times more pollution releases during hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico than during normal weather from 2005 to 2020.
A team at Rice University’s new Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience investigates how industrial communities in flood-prone areas nationwide can better adapt to such threats, socially as well as technologically.
They have an interactive map, which shows where elevated future flood risks threaten to inundate major polluters, using the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory. This tool may prove a great aid in the future is to help communities understand their risks.
This storm also provoked fear beyond this region. What place is next? Is anywhere safe from these environmental tragedies? Stronger storms are here, along with longer droughts and more wildfires.
Last year, a UN climate report warned that the world is failing to get a grip on the climate crisis, providing more evidence that the world remains massively off track to limit global warming and avoid the worst of climate catastrophe.
Last month, researchers published a new temperature timeline from the planet’s last 485 millions years, revealing far hotter temperatures than scientists had previously realized.
While it might seem like a good thing, that the planet has endured warmer temps, the scientists explained why it’s not.
In fact, the current human-caused global warming is a dire concern, according to Emily Judd, a researcher at University of Arizona and the Smithsonian specializing in ancient climates and the lead author of the study.
The timeline illustrates how swift and dramatic temperature shifts were associated with many of the world’s worst moments, including a mass extinction that wiped out roughly 90 percent of all species and the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs.
It “has kept me awake at night,” she told Science News. “I’m worried that climate deniers and climate skeptics and climate delayers will point to this and say, ‘See! We have nothing to worry about.’”
The timeline combined more than 150,000 pieces of fossil evidence with state-of-the-art climate models, showing an intimate link between carbon dioxide and global temperatures.
At no point in the almost half-billion years that scientists analyzed did the Earth change as fast as right now.
“In the same way as a massive asteroid hitting the Earth, what we’re doing now is unprecedented,” she told The Washington Post.
Judson Jones, a meteorologist and reporter for The New York Times who forecasts and covers extreme weather, spoke on The Daily this week about how the storm was able to fuel itself and rapidly intensify thanks to the warm ocean water in the Gulf of Mexico.
In fact, the Gulf of Mexico has never been as heated as when the storm came across it, he explained. That’s how the storm jumped from a Category 1 to a Category 4 hurricane in 16 hours.
North Carolina experienced what’s called a predecessor rainfall event, meaning that the storm generated heavy rainfall before the storm got there, causing the deadly and destructive flooding.
The storm and flooding also knocked out the city’s water system, as reported by Blue Ride Public Radio.
Nearly 100,000 Asheville residents may not have access to water for weeks, according to a press release shared by the city on Sunday afternoon.
“Extensive repairs are required to treatment facilities, underground and aboveground water pipes, and to roads that have washed away which are preventing water personnel from accessing parts of the system,” the city’s press release said.
The infrastructure in most cities, including roads, bridges and buildings, isn’t prepared to handle these increasingly intense storms.
Engineers have designed these structures using old rainfall records, so we have to begin updating them to get ready for future storms.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is currently updating the rainfall records for the whole country, including projecting how much worse storms could be. North Carolina, like other states, is also working on in-depth flood plan to help communities prepare for the risks ahead.
The North Carolina Flood Resiliency Blueprint is a new initiative to use advanced computer modeling to help communities understand how different flood projects could improve their safety.
Sadly, these projects take time and resources that did not come in time for Asheville.
If you want to contribute to this community, here are some local and national orgs on the ground now:
For resources to help farmers, check out this list.
We have to keep listening to and funding the science on climate change.
"I think it's important for the public to take [this] seriously," Adam Sobel, a climate scientist at Columbia University told NPR in 2023. "The storms are getting stronger. So even for the same number of storms, the number that are a real problem goes up because they are strengthening."
We leave you with this beautifully haunting song by Kelly McFarling, an Atlanta born, Bay Area-based singer-songwriter.
Comments are open to all this week. Share your stories and as always be kind in the comments. ❤️
Nobody can be prepared for something like this and I am afraid that it is only going to get worse ever year. It is time for ever Government department and State department to work together because Climate change is here.
geoengineeringwatch.org Dane Wigington his documentary The Dimming