Tropical Storm Harvey, which has shattered longstanding weather records, would've spelled disaster for just about any city it struck. After all, parts of the Houston area have received half their annual rainfall in just a few days' time.
Yet Houston is not an ordinary city when it comes to flood infrastructure. And this flood has lessons for policymakers at all levels of government — including President Donald Trump — about how to protect Americans in an era of rising disaster risks related to population growth, aging infrastructure, and climate change.
To some extent, the scenes of a major American city underwater seems like Mother Nature's riposte to the Trump administration, which has spent 7 months methodically reversing the climate change policies enacted of President Barack Obama. From the planned pullout of the Paris Climate Agreement to an executive order pulling back Obama-era protections mandating that infrastructure plans take sea level rise into account, Trump is setting more American cities up for future Harvey-level disasters. Read more...
More about Climate, Global Warming, Extreme Weather, Climate Change, and Floodvia Zero Tech Blog
