Extreme weather events have become increasingly common: (According to the IPCC, or heat waves, droughts and extreme thunderstorm soccurred, on average, once every ten years, while today heat waves are 2.8 times more frequent, droughts are 1.7 times more frequent and extreme thunderstorms are 1.3 times more frequent). [1] Considering the conditions in which our people find themselves at the moment, not addressing the issue of climate change is a luxury that we can no longer afford. In this sense, we believe it may be useful, and therefore necessary, to recall in this article some events dating back to 2021 that affected the United States: floods of such intensity and destructive power as to have called into question the entire system of American public administration.
As Patrick Sisson reports, in his contribution to the CityLab| Bloomberg’s environment, hurricane winds and heavy rainfall are identified as the main threats for the next decade in areas of the northeastern United States, redrawing the mapping for subsequent flooding. [2]
In August 2021, Tennessee’s record rainfall was record-ever recorded. Among the missing and displaced, these terrible storms have brought the death of more than 20 people, with chilling stories, including, the most touching, that of twins torn away directly from their father’s arms.
“It was like a tidal wave that suddenly invaded my house and my yard. Our house collapsed with us inside: we had to break the window, get out and get on the roof as fast as possible,” CNN told in interviewing survivors. [3]
The rainfall, which reached the western area of North Carolina and Haywood County, particularly affected Tennessee, which was therefore found, in terms of deaths and damage, the most affected area (we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of damage caused at an environmental, social and urban level). As Sisson reports, these latest meteorological events have left an indelible mark, officially making Tennessee one of the states that have suffered the most significant economic and environmental damage in the USA [4]. This recording took place after the same area was hit and wiped out by the remains of Hurricane Ida, contributing to irreparable damage.
The flood has literally brought an entire community to its knees, found struggling between life and death, and then trying to take back their lives and start from scratch. Broken lives, destroyed families, houses reduced to rubble, jobs and years of sacrifice seen crumbling with their own eyes, not to mention the psychological damage caused, with which they will have to learn to live. The dramatic scenario of that August 2021 was demonstrated by the countless images that accompany the news on the main newspapers and disseminated by the main mass media: cars, infrastructures, urban facilities and any means of transport, literally thrown from one side and the other of the affected cities. The climax of the pain is reached with the testimonies of the survivors about dramatic scenes where the undertow of the sea leave behind waves of death and devastation [5].
How to explain a destruction of such magnitude? The violence of the floods is to be found in the problem of rainfall, which can therefore be traced back to one of the many testimonies of nature’s rebellion against humanity. The US National Weather Service recorded an amount of precipitation for the specific episode of August 2021, corresponding to a third of an entire year. This means a rainfall concentration that disproportionately exceeds the standards of daily metrics. To report an estimate, we quote the data enunciated by the Swiss channel Infoswiss: 43 cm in the city of McEwen, in the county of Humphreys, was the new record of precipitation in twenty-four hours (the previous one was 34.5 cm recorded in 1982). [6]
This scenario has particularly alarmed meteorologists, because on the basis of these recording scales so strong impact it is possible to anticipate what may happen in the time to come. That is why climate change is mentioned as one of the main challenges that the United States of America will have to face in the near future.
According to the “Worsening Winds”, a report published on February 26 by the First Street Foundation (non-profit) will be 13.4 million urban structures that will have to deal with hurricanes that will hit in particular the northernmost areas of the country [7]. Translating into concrete terms, ignoring the urban and social damage, not quantifiable, it is estimated, for the economic sector, a loss of 900 million dollars only for the Florida region (+ 1.4 billion losses considering the entirety of the United States).
The issue is significantly complicated if we consider that it is typical of American cities to have a morphology characterized by concrete and asphalt, all impermeable materials that prove to be unsuitable for dealing with emergency situations such as those described above.
The problem, therefore, is much more structural than it may appear and is therefore disconnected from the exceptional nature of climatic events. As Rob Moore, director of the Water and Climate Team at the Natural Resources Defense Council, reports: “The problem is already here. It is not necessarily a future problem. It’s a problem even today.” [8]
While efforts have already been made to modernize urban areas, as happened in New York with the construction of “pockets,” specific green areas that should be able to absorb rain, such as parks, squares and rooftops, this may not be enough, says Vincent Lee, Arup’s global water skills leader and associate dean. [9] The difficulty lies in the poor distribution on the territory, of those areas that could allow the absorption of rainwater, a distribution that is in no way balanced and that allows those areas to be violently affected by the overflow of the sewers.
In conclusion, it is clear that the approach and consequent instruments adopted to date are insufficient to face a challenge that proves to be structural. It will be important to put aside superficiality to devote oneself entirely to the issue, allocating more funds to technical research but not only. Raising awareness among citizens is still, as it has always been, the top priority: hoping for more effective future solutions, it is still possible, in Cherrier’s words, to “fail safely”, that is, to have a more pragmatic and less ideological approach to the issue, which accepts the irreversibility of the situation in a context in which each of us, even if to a small extent, it can make a difference.
References
[1] https://cittaclima.it/2022/04/15/laccelerata-frequenza-degli-eventi-meteorologici-estremi/
[3] https://www.open.online/2021/08/23/inondazioni-tennessee-morti-dispersi/
[5] https://www.open.online/2021/08/23/inondazioni-tennessee-morti-dispersi/
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Bibliography
https://cittaclima.it/2022/04/15/laccelerata-frequenza-degli-eventi-meteorologici-estremi/
https://www.open.online/2021/08/23/inondazioni-tennessee-morti-dispersi/