How do we deal with floods in the age of climate change?

On the evening of July 3, when the sun sailed past Kerrville, Texas, a small city of about twenty-five thousand people and the location of Kerr County, the Guadalupe River was only four inches deep, and there was four inches deep. There has been no rain in the area since mid-June. RV campers at HTR TX Hill Country Campground in Kerrville, some of whom arrived at the 65-acre facility just a few hours ago, could barely hear the river even if they were parked in high-end attractions by the river.

At 3:30 yes On July 4, city manager Dalton Rice went out to jog along the slow waterway. The river has risen to 1.71 feet, near its average depth. Kerrville’s highly anticipated “Fourth on the River” celebration at Riverside Louise Hays Park is scheduled for the afternoon of the day, and Rice saw “no rain” during his run. To 4 yesWhen Rice came home, “it was very little rain,” he said that day. “We didn’t see any signs of the river rising at that time.”

Rice obviously didn’t realize it a few hours ago, 1:14 yesthe National Weather Service’s Austin-San Antonio office has issued a flash water warning to Kerr County in the south-central region. It covers areas including the town of Hunter, about twelve miles upstream from Kerrville, where Mystic Camp Mystic is located at the confluence of Cypress Creek and Guadalupe’s South Fork. At 4:03 yeswarning has escalated to an emergency: “This is a A particularly dangerous situation. Seeking a higher position now! Hunt’s river meter shows that the river is close to 22 feet, twelve feet higher than the river for the next hour.

New footage of flood-related disasters has traditionally shown low-lying coastal towns that are flooded by named weather systems where residents and rescuers sail on hip waders, canoes and powered boats on streets, sometimes water levels sometimes take several days. Houston, New Orleans, Tampa, Charleston and New York are among the cities that have been flooded in the past three decades. However, storm-driven flooding is not the deadliest flood. The disaster usually unfolds so slowly that there is time for many people to reach higher ground and get weather reporters in place. The water is not as fast as the flooded rivers. The water flowing in the Crazy River reshapes the entire landscape, a process known as river erosion.

Flooding in Kerr County is more like a tornado or wildfire, a turbulent, rapidly changing danger, narrow windows at the deadly force of the angry river reaching your doorstep. In September 2024, floods killed 18 people in the Western Highlands of North Carolina, when Hurricane Helen died. Such incidents occurred, with floods in Valencia, Spain causing floods in late 2024, killing 222 people. So did the recent flood of life that caused III in Ruidoso, New Mexico. In my part-time home in Vermont, the storm flooded much of the state, including the capital, Montpelier, in July 2023, floods hit Hurricane Beryl in July 2024, and in July 2024. The two were killed in each incident and suffered serious damage from the damage. The disaster of 2023 was not even caused by the named storm. The “Thunder Tide Generation” soaked in rain is enough to cause damage.

Historically, this flood often occurs in hilly and mountainous areas, focusing on floods that are much lower than stormy floods, and local municipalities tend to be less prepared than coastal towns. Those who moved from the beach to escape hurricanes and sea level rises and settled in so-called “climate havens” such as Asheville, North Carolina or Vermont Plymouth, unwilling to accept that they were just a devil deal for what they didn’t know. Francis J. Magilligan, a river geomorphologist at Dartmouth College. FEMA Or understand this risk in other ways. ”

The floodplain map used by the Federal Emergency Administration to designate Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHAs) is based on historical climate and geological data. These maps do not show the actual boundaries of past floods; instead, they illustrate the probability of statistical construction based on a certain degree of flooding over a certain time range. National flood insurance plans use maps to calculate risks. For example, people living in a hundred-year floodplain have a chance of one percentage point in any year. Anyone who builds or purchases property in a mapped floodplain must come up with federal flood insurance in order to qualify for mortgage. The map covers the boundaries of coastal areas and major rivers, such as Mississippi, with frequent flooding. They usually do not cover mountain communities of smaller rivers and streams, where flooding affects not only those living under the river, but also those living on the banks above them, whose houses may be lost due to erosion. And, most of the data FEMA The purpose used to specify SFHA is based on readings from the 1960s and earlier, that climate change has largely made it obsolete. The language also creates a false sense of confidence. It sounds like flooding only happens once, and that’s not how statistics should be running.

Flash torrents usually occur on topography, with steep, narrow valleys draining water into rivers where water is confined to natural and artificial passages and nowhere to go. The trigger is very heavy and the rainfall is concentrated. Warm oceans cause more surface evaporation, and warmer air can carry more moisture. When the warm air is forced by the mountain, it cools down and loses the ability to retain water, which suddenly releases rain. With the flooding in Valencia, the year of rainfall drops in one day. In North Carolina, it drops to twelve to 14 inches of rain in a few hours. As global temperatures rise, extreme precipitation bursts will increase. Carl Renshaw, a hydrologist in Dartmouth, told me that referring to the weather conditions that caused the flood in Texas: “You dumped water so quickly because you had the system prepared with moisture. It was like having a gun.

Kerr County and its neighbor Kendall County sit in a valley called Flood Lane as the speed of rainfall extends from the cliffs of Balcon to the cliffs, then passes through streams and rivers to the coastal plains around San Antonio. The hillside is steep and the thin dry topsoil on the bedrock is almost water-free. Major floods occur regularly. However, even in the July 4 press conference, the judge of Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly described “the most dangerous valley in America” in Flow Flood Flood Alley, where people are still building a century-old floodplain. When the property is flooded, old friends and new immigrants tend to fix the problem. “We have a history of flooding and reconstruction here,” Texas State University professor of geography, Kimberly Meitzen, in San Marcos, told me. In 1978, 1987, 1998, 2002 and 2015, she mentioned five floods in life memories, including not only houses, but the entire community washed away. “They are just rebuilding,” she said. Additionally, she added, “people continue to ask for differences to be closer to the reconstruction of the river.” “There is no really strong regulatory authority to prevent it,” she continued. “So it continues to put more people in danger.”

In Vermont, in August 2011, the flood caused by Hurricane Irene was so devastating that the U.S. Geological Survey called it a 505-year flood, with at least one analysis deeming it a 1,000-year flood. On July 10, 2024, the floods that collapsed occurred in the second year after the 2023 flood, which is a hundred years ago. And, on the same day in July this year, a huge flood hit Caledonia County in the northern part of the state. Although it is not statistically impossible to flood, it indicates the probability curve used FEMA Going into trouble in real climate conditions.

A national study commissioned by the private risk assessment company First Street Foundation concluded that the flood of previously thought to be a century-old activity has become an activity of sixty-two years. (In some places, estimates are as low as eight years.) The study also found that in Vermont’s Washington County, including Montpellier, Plainfield and the cities of Barre, there are more than 48 properties (of nearly 35,000 real estate), but at high risk of flood range, FEMA Included in less than 1500 properties on its special flood measures map. Nationwide, 17.7 million properties have been found to be at risk of flooding, but only about 5 million properties FEMA Flood hazard zone. This means that millions of homebuyers and owners are making incomplete decisions about the real physical and financial risks they face. “Ultimately, what you end up doing is systematically underestimate the risk of flooding,” Jeremy Porter, head of climate stimulus research at First Street, told me.

Vermont feels like the border of climate change in the Northeast. Farmers in the bottom field used to grow wheat and barley and began to grow rice that can be poured under water for two days without damaging the crops. Early Vermont settlers cut down the old roads that lasted for more than 200 years were melting back into the forest. Extreme events drive the road to bedrock ledges, making them impassable, and since no one uses them, no blowing trees will be cleaned. The next storm brings more arrangements. Ten years ago, I was riding a bicycle road on the hill, and it was a unique road at the time, with aging trees on each side, lininged by aging stone walls, and now it was falling trees, tangled with branches and rocks, and it was hard to tell a way.

Vermont is Wyoming’s second state after its population, with less than 650,000 residents. It is also the fourth highest per capita disaster relief fund, almost all related to flooding. Washington County ranked first in the Disaster Declaration between 2011 and 2024. Since the 1960s, the state has increased annual precipitation by 6 inches, with rainfall events in the Northeast being expected to increase by 52% to 2100% compared to normal rainfall events. Among land use planners on the front lines of frequent disasters, traditional methods of prevention (shrinking the bottom of the river, the sides of the armor, sweeping across the river bank), this only makes it worse and worse.