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What feels different about this event, is that we are having the conversation about how to recover from a catastrophic flooding event while simultaneously having a national conversation about who is most vulnerable to floods and how to ensure equity and justice in flood management. Hurricane Ida is just that latest in a decades long string of catastrophic storms and floods that have sparked an outcry to reform the way we manage flooding and natural disasters as a nation.
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Schuylkill River in Conshohocken, PA | Photo by Michael Stokes Reducing flood vulnerability will require an anti-racist approach. New York City’s stormwater infrastructure was overwhelmed by record setting rainfall that turned streets into rivers and drowned residents in basement apartments.
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Here in Central Pennsylvania where I live, schools were closed on the second day of the school year in expectation that flash flooding would make roads too dangerous for buses to travel. A million people were left without power and utilities as they begin the long, slow process of recovery and rebuilding.Īs Ida made her way north, the storm dumped significant rain onto communities across the Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic. But as the images and stories roll in, it is clear that Hurricane Ida brought catastrophic flooding and storm damage for many communities in her path. Sunday, sixteen years to the day after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Hurricane Ida roared ashore in Louisiana, with enough power to reverse the flow of the Mississippi River. Thankfully, unlike during Katrina, the New Orleans levee system withstood the impacts of the Category 4 hurricane and storm surge thanks to $14.5 billion invested in the city’s flood protection system.