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Hurricane Sally finally slammed onshore along the Alabama-Florida border early yesterday morning after more than a day picking up moisture over the Gulf of Mexico.
Why This Matters: Severe storms like hurricanes Sally, Dorian, and Harvey, but even thunderstorms, are becoming wetter, more intense, have longer staying power, and are harder to predict.
Continue Reading 633 wordsHurricane Sally, now a category 2 storm (winds at 110 mph) has slowed and intensified in the last 24 hours, with landfall now shifting to the east (fortunately away from New Orleans), but crawling toward the Eastern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida Panhandle coastline with its high winds whipping the shore, the storm surge and huge rainfall amounts are expected to last for the next 36 hours.
Why This Matters: As President Trump denies the science, which he literally did today in California, the Gulf Coast gets ready for rainfall totals measured in feet not inches.
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Evacuations have begun as Tropical Storm Sally is picking up strength and heading straight for southeastern Louisiana. Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expect it to make landfall as a Category 2 hurricane sometime early on Tuesday, according to CNN.
Why This Matters: Trump voters in Florida are less likely to heed severe weather warnings — they believe conservative media outlets that claim that weather forecasts are exaggerated because the liberal media is hyping climate change.
Continue Reading 493 wordsThe COVID pandemic makes much more challenging all the issues surrounding the evacuation, response, and rebuilding of the areas of Louisiana and Texas hit hard by Hurricane Laura. As National Public Radio explains, many families are now essentially homeless because their houses were ruined by the storm and they lack running water and electricity.
Why This Matters: 67,000 people have already registered for Federal disaster assistance but it will not get better any time soon for those hit hardest by the storm.
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Eight years ago Superstorm Sandy killed 44 people in New York City, cost the City approximately $19 billion in damages and lost economic activity according to city officials, and left more than 69,000 residences damaged. Inside Climate News’ Kristoffer Tigue reported that earlier this year the New York state legislature was poised to pass a $3b bill called the “Restore Mother Nature Bond Act,” which would have allowed the state to issued bonds to help fund projects specifically geared toward reducing New York’s flood risk.
Why This Matters: Advocates argue that this delay in climate adaptation funding will hurt New York City’s low-income communities of color, which already bear a disproportionate burden of climate impacts.
Continue Reading 459 wordsTwelve years after Hurricane Ike tore up the Texas coastline around Galveston, and three years after Hurricane Harvey stalled over Houston and filled the city with floodwater, the federal government and the state have a proposal to deal with future hurricanes — but it will cost $32b and is still in the planning phase.
Why This Matters: There may be a cheaper and more effective solution than the Ike Dike, which is to build a series of barrier islands using the silt dredged out of Houston Harbor.
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