Flooding

How a community recovers after a disaster like Hurricane Ian is often a “chicken and egg” question: Which returns first – businesses or households? Businesses need employees and customers to be able to function. Households need jobs and the services businesses provide. As an urban planning researcher who focuses on housing recovery after disasters, I have found in my research that they’re mutually dependent. However, in coastal communities, the recovery of tourism-based businesses like restaurants and hotels depends in large part on the return of affordable housing for employees. Rockport, Texas, where Hurricane Harvey made landfall in 2017, is an example of the challenge. It’s a small community that caters to vacationers and sport fishermen, including celebrities like country singer George Strait, who filmed an ad campaign in 2018 urging tourists to return to Rockport. Drawing tourists isn’t easy without fully functioning restaurants and hot...

You may be hearing the phrase “loss and damage” in the coming weeks as government leaders meet in Egypt for the 2022 U.N. Climate Change Conference. It refers to the costs, both economic and physical, that developing countries are facing from climate change impacts. Many of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries have done little to cause climate change, yet they are experiencing extreme heat waves, floods and other climate-related disasters. They want wealthier nations – historically the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions – to pay for the harm. A powerful example is Pakistan, where extreme rainfall on the heels of a glacier-melting heat wave flooded nearly one-third of the country in the summer of 2022. The flooding turned Pakistan’s farm fields into miles-wide lakes that stranded communities for weeks. More than 1,700 people died, millions lost their homes and livelihoods, and more than 4 million acres of crops and orchards,...

Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms to hit the U.S., tore part of the roof off a hospital in Port Charlotte, Florida, and flooded the building’s lower level emergency room, sending staff scrambling to move patients as water poured in. At least nine hospitals and dozens of nursing homes had to transfer patients after losing access to clean water because of the storm. Health care services are essential at any time, but when disasters strike, those services become even more crucial as injuries rise. Yet in many coastal communities, the hospitals were built in locations that are at increasingly high risk of flooding during hurricanes. I study ways to improve disaster communications, including how health care organizations prepare for severe weather events. Here’s what research shows about the rising risks. High percentage of coastal hospitals at risk Given the impact of climate change, many areas are susceptible to severe weather events and hazards. Healt...

Wetlands are areas of land that are covered by water, or have flooded or waterlogged soils. They can have water on them either permanently or for just part of the year. Whether it’s year-round or seasonal, this period of water saturation produces hydric soils, which contain little or no oxygen. But this doesn’t mean that they are lifeless: Wetlands are full of unique water-loving plants and wildlife that have adapted to wet environments. Wetlands can take many different forms, depending on the local climate, water conditions and land forms and features. For example, swamps are dominated by woody trees or shrubs. Marshes often have more grasslike plants, such as cattails and bulrushes. Bogs and fens are areas that accumulate peat – deposits of dead and partly decomposed plant materials that form organic-rich soil. Trillions of dollars in ecological benefits Wetlands are important environments for many reasons. They provide ecological services whose value has...

Hurricane Ian strengthened into a major hurricane on Tuesday as it headed for Florida and was on track to bring dangerous storm surge to the coast and flooding rainfall to large parts of the state. Several areas were under evacuation orders. After a slow start to the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, Ian formed in ideal conditions, with minimal vertical wind shear, which can tear apart a storm, and warm ocean surface waters providing fuel. Forecasters expect Ian to remain a major hurricane – meaning Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, with winds over 110 mph – as it heads for landfall in Florida, expected Wednesday. But the scale doesn’t take water risk into account, and flooding and storm surge are both major risks from Ian. Large parts of the state could see 15 inches or more of rain from Hurricane Ian. National Hurricane Center As a meteorologist livin...