The Morning: America’s flooding problem

 

Good morning. Today, my colleague Christopher Flavelle writes about how people are coping with increasing floods. We’re also covering early voting, sickle cell gene therapy and Hanoi, Vietnam. —David Leonhardt

In Plant City, Fla. Caitlin Ochs for The New York Times

 

 

Three views of the water

By Christopher Flavelle  I write about how we try to adapt to climate change.

 America has a flooding problem. When Hurricane Milton hit Florida, the images of inundation seemed shocking — but also weirdly normal: For what felt like the umpteenth time this year, entire communities were underwater. Since the 1990s, the cost of flood damage has roughly doubled each decade, according to one estimate. The federal government issued two disaster declarations for floods in 2000. So far this year, it has issued 66.

The reasons are no mystery. Global warming is making storms more severe because warmer air holds more water. At the same time, more Americans are moving to the coast and other flood-prone areas.

Those conflicting trends are forcing people to adapt. Advances in design, science and engineering — combined with a willingness to spend vast amounts of money — have allowed the United States and other wealthy countries to try new ideas for coping with water. In today’s newsletter, I’ll tell you about the three basic ways to deal with flooding.

1. Fight the water

The first strategy is to fight the water: Build walls to keep it out of your city, along with giant pumps and drains to remove whatever water gets in. Think of Holland, much of which would be underwater without a massive network of barriers, or Venice, which now relies on sea walls during high tide.

But thanks to climate change, this approach means ever-more-epic fortifications. After Hurricane Katrina, the federal government built a $14 billion, 350-mile defensive ring around New Orleans. The United States is also looking at building 12 movable sea barriers to protect New York Harbor from a storm surge, at an initial cost of $52 billion.

Even the beneficiaries aren’t always thrilled. A plan to build a six-mile-long, 20-foot-high sea wall around the coast of Miami prompted outrage: It would, after all, ruin the view. The plan was abandoned.

2. Live with it

The second approach is to accept that water will get in, so we should live with it. This entails elevating homes off the ground, as builders do in the Outer Banks or coastal Louisiana. It also means raising roads, power stations and other critical infrastructure — all at no small cost.

Another example of living with water is described in an excellent new piece from my colleague Rory Smith, who visited a coastal plain in southwest England that used to be farmland protected by a sea wall. Officials converted it into a marsh when they realized it was best just to open up flood barriers, turning the area into a giant sponge. Now, communities farther inland are less likely to flood.

Cities like Hoboken, N.J., have embraced this concept, building spaces designed to capture and hold storm water.

In Bradenton Beach, Fla. Callaghan O'Hare for The New York Times

 

 

 

3. Pack your bags

Sometimes those things don’t work. Then, and usually only then, communities resign themselves to simply leaving.

In 2016, the Obama administration provided $48 million to move Isle de Jean Charles, an island village of a few dozen families in Louisiana, away from the rising Gulf of Mexico. The single road to the mainland was frequently wrecked by storms, and, by common consensus, the community couldn’t be saved. It was the first climate-driven relocation project in the United States.

I visited Isle de Jean Charles to watch residents vote on where their new community should be built. Relocation — experts call it “managed retreat” — is about as hard as you might think. Few people are eager to leave, and there’s no guarantee that the community will remain intact.

Even so, the approach is becoming more common. Congress has passed millions of dollars to relocate Native American tribes, which often live on land dangerously vulnerable to flooding. Canada pushes some homeowners not to rebuild in the same place after a flood.

What now?

Behind those options is a puzzle: With so many tools available, why does flood damage in the United States (which cost more than $180 billion last year, according to one estimate) keep rising? I asked Chad Berginnis, head of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. “Two things,” he told me. “Irrationality and elections.”

People struggle to assess the danger when disasters are infrequent but incredibly costly, he said. And politicians realize they won’t become popular by raising people’s taxes to pay for colossal infrastructure projects.

With that in mind, Berginnis suggests a fourth option for flood protection: In especially high-risk areas, stop building new homes.

For more: I encourage you to read Rory’s article about how England surrendered farmland back to the water.

For more

• This summer, the U.S. government restricted building in flood plains.
• Last month, fueled by climate change, floods wreaked havoc across four continents.
• Real estate is booming in flood zones. Here’s why buyers risk it.
• Scientists are mapping landslide hazards in Alaska. Some homeowners don’t want to know.