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Tennessee floods show a pressing climate danger across America: 'Walls of water'
Climate and Environment
Tennessee floods show a pressing climate danger across America: ‘Walls of water’
‘Climate change has come barging through the front doors of America.’
By Sarah Kaplan
Yesterday at 9:54 p.m. EDT
Janet Rice never suspected that Trace Creek could get so high. It would take an ocean surging 500 miles from the coast to her rural town in middle Tennessee.
Then the weekend happened. More than 17 inches of rain fell in a single day on Saturday, overtopping the region’s many rivers and submerging places not previously considered floodplains within a matter of hours. Rice’s family business, a feed store that had stood for a century, was ripped in half. At least 21 people are dead, hundreds of homes are in shambles and the wreckage of people’s lives is strewn across the landscape.
“An ocean did come through,” Rice said.
Tennessee’s flash floods underscore the peril climate change poses even in inland areas, where people once thought themselves immune. A warmer atmosphere that holds more water, combined with rapid development and crumbling infrastructure, is turning once-rare disasters into common occurrences. Yet Americans, who often associate global warming with melting glaciers and intense heat, are not prepared for the coming deluge.
Vehicles are submerged in Trace Creek on Aug. 22. (Andrew Nelles/The Tennessean/AP)
Inland flooding is the leading cause of death associated with tropical cyclones in the past 50 years, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. On average, damage from inland floods costs more than any other severe weather event. It’s a problem from the mountains of western North Carolina, where Tropical Storm Fred killed five people last week, to the streets of Dearborn, Mich., where heavy rains have repeatedly overwhelmed the sewer systems and destroyed homes.
{snip. That last link doesn't go to an article about Dearborn, Michigan.}
By Sarah Kaplan
Sarah Kaplan is a climate reporter covering humanity's response to a warming world. She previously reported on Earth science and the universe. Twitter https://twitter.com/sarahkaplan48
Tennessee floods show a pressing climate danger across America: ‘Walls of water’
‘Climate change has come barging through the front doors of America.’
By Sarah Kaplan
Yesterday at 9:54 p.m. EDT
Janet Rice never suspected that Trace Creek could get so high. It would take an ocean surging 500 miles from the coast to her rural town in middle Tennessee.
Then the weekend happened. More than 17 inches of rain fell in a single day on Saturday, overtopping the region’s many rivers and submerging places not previously considered floodplains within a matter of hours. Rice’s family business, a feed store that had stood for a century, was ripped in half. At least 21 people are dead, hundreds of homes are in shambles and the wreckage of people’s lives is strewn across the landscape.
“An ocean did come through,” Rice said.
Tennessee’s flash floods underscore the peril climate change poses even in inland areas, where people once thought themselves immune. A warmer atmosphere that holds more water, combined with rapid development and crumbling infrastructure, is turning once-rare disasters into common occurrences. Yet Americans, who often associate global warming with melting glaciers and intense heat, are not prepared for the coming deluge.
Vehicles are submerged in Trace Creek on Aug. 22. (Andrew Nelles/The Tennessean/AP)
Inland flooding is the leading cause of death associated with tropical cyclones in the past 50 years, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. On average, damage from inland floods costs more than any other severe weather event. It’s a problem from the mountains of western North Carolina, where Tropical Storm Fred killed five people last week, to the streets of Dearborn, Mich., where heavy rains have repeatedly overwhelmed the sewer systems and destroyed homes.
{snip. That last link doesn't go to an article about Dearborn, Michigan.}
By Sarah Kaplan
Sarah Kaplan is a climate reporter covering humanity's response to a warming world. She previously reported on Earth science and the universe. Twitter https://twitter.com/sarahkaplan48