Five people were killed amid flash flooding in Pennsylvania as heavy downpours continue in the Northeast. Much of the rest of the country is still dealing with extreme heat. Danya Bacchus reports.
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Three people died Saturday when a region of Southeastern Pennsylvania was hit by powerful flash flooding, authorities said.
The three weather-related deaths, two females and a male, occurred in Upper Makefield Township, the Bucks County Coroner’s Office confirmed. Upper Makefield is located about 35 miles northeast of Philadelphia.
CBS News Philadelphia learned the victims were all adults who were found outside their car in water that was five-feet high.
The Bucks Co Coroner Ofc says at least 3 ppl died after roads flooded from torrential rain. It happened in the area of Upper Makefield Twp just before 7p. The victims are adults found outside their cars. We’re told the water level was about 5 ft above the ground. @CBSPhiladelphia
Bucks County firefighters, along with other local agencies, had been dispatched to a search and rescue operation a little before 7 p.m. Eastern time.
Bucks County Coroner Meredith J. Buck told CBS News that several water rescues were taking place in the area, and officials expected that there could be more fatalities.
Taylorsville Rd is closed at Woodside Rd in Lower Makefield Twp in due to severe flooding. Police say part of the road is broken apart after heavy rain moved through Bucks County. @CBSPhiladelphiapic.twitter.com/uxcY9EoHkF
One man told CBS Philadelphia that he and his wife were driving when the road they were on suddenly filled with water and their car flipped over.
Multiple highways and roads in the area were shut down, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Roads were littered with abandoned vehicles and downed trees. Local police said some roads had broken apart because of the flooding.
South Korean rescue workers pulled six bodies from vehicles trapped in a flooded tunnel, as days of heavy rain triggered flash floods and landslides and destroyed homes, leaving more than 30 people dead and forcing thousands to evacuate, officials said Sunday.
Nearly 400 rescue workers, including divers, were searching the tunnel in the central city of Cheongju, where around 15 vehicles, including a bus, got swept away in a flash flood Saturday evening, Seo Jeong-il, chief of the city’s fire department, said in a briefing.
Nine survivors were rescued from the tunnel, but the total number of passengers trapped in vehicles wasn’t immediately clear, Seo said.
Rescue workers search for people in a house collapsed following a landslide caused by heavy rain in Yeongju, South Korea, Saturday, July 15, 2023. (Gyeongbuk Fire Station Service Headquarters via Yonhap AP)
AP
South Korea has been pounded by heavy rains since July 9. The rainfall had forced nearly 6,000 people to evacuate and left 27,260 households without electricity in the past several days while flooding or destroying dozens of homes, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said.
The bodies pulled from the vehicles in Cheongju weren’t immediately reflected in the ministry’s official death toll, which was 26 as of Sunday morning.
South Korea’s weather agency said some parts of the country will continue to receive heavy rain. President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was visiting Ukraine on Saturday, asked Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to mobilize all available resources to respond to the disaster, according to Yoon’s office.
Days of heavy rain in South Korea have left at least 22 people dead and 14 others missing in landslides, floods and other incidents, the government said Saturday.
The 22 fatalities were reported on Friday and Saturday, all in the central and southeastern regions, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said in a report.
An earlier ministry report on Saturday morning said five people died after landslides caused by torrential downpours buried their houses. Two others also died in landslide-related incidents. But the latest ministry report didn’t explain the cause of deaths for the additional fatalities.
The report said torrential rains have also left 14 people missing since Tuesday, and 13 others injured since Thursday.
Rescue workers search for people in a house collapsed following a landslide caused by heavy rain in Yeongju, South Korea, Saturday, July 15, 2023. (Gyeongbuk Fire Station Service Headquarters via Yonhap AP)
AP
South Korea has been pounded by heavy rains since July 9. The ministry report said the rainfall had forced about 4,760 people to evacuate and left thousands of households without electricity in the past seven days. It said more than 2,000 people remained in temporary shelters as of Saturday afternoon.
Also Saturday, 20 flights were canceled, and the country’s regular train service and some of its bullet trains were suspended, the ministry said. It said about 140 roads remained closed.
South Korea’s weather agency said some parts of the country will continue to receive heavy rain until Sunday. President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was visiting Ukraine on Saturday, asked Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to mobilize all available resources to respond to the disaster, according to Yoon’s office.
Central regions received the largest rainfall, with more than 600 millimeters (24 inches) in the city of Gongju and the county of Cheongyang since July 9, respectively.
Multiple rounds of intense rainstorms dumped two months of rain in just two days in Vermont and other parts of the northeast. Officials warn a dam upstream from the capital city of Vermont, Montpelier, could overflow for the first time — adding to the existing flood damage. CBS News correspondent Meg Oliver has more on the potential threat the dam poses.
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Northeastern flooding and high temperatures throughout the U.S. are expected to continue. The Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Bettes has the forecast.
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Heavy rain slams the Northeast, cutting off roads and flooding entire towns in Vermont. Also, President Biden spends the day overseas in high-stakes meetings with NATO allies, as the international organization moves closer to allowing Sweden to join. All that and all that matters in today’s Eye Opener.
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Heavy downpours have been flooding homes and washing away roads and bridges in parts of the Northeast. Water rescue teams rushed to Vermont on Monday after the rain made some towns unreachable by road. CBS News national correspondent Errol Barnett has the latest from Rockland County, New York, which saw a summer’s worth of rain on Sunday.
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Heavy rain sent mud and debris down the Ottauquechee River in Quechee, Vermont, on Monday.
Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Mike Cannon of Vermont Urban Search and Rescue said crews from North Carolina, Michigan and Connecticut were among those helping to get to towns that have been unreachable since torrents of rain belted the state overnight. More crews were coming from Massachusetts and New Jersey, according to the Vermont Department of Public Safety, and California’s Office of Emergency Services said it would be sending crews as well.
The towns of Londonderry and Weston were inaccessible, Cannon said, and rescuers were heading there to do welfare checks. Water levels at several dams were being closely monitored.
More than 50 people had to be rescued as of Monday night, the Vermont Department of Public Safety said.
There have been no reports of injuries or deaths related to the flooding in Vermont, according to state emergency officials. Roads were closed across the state, including many along the spine of the Green Mountains.
Some people canoed their way to the Cavendish Baptist Church in Vermont, which had turned into a shelter. About 30 people waited it out, some of them making cookies for firefighters who were working to evacuate and rescue others.
“People are doing OK. It’s just stressful,” shelter volunteer Amanda Gross said.
Vermont Rep. Kelly Pajala said she and about half a dozen others had to evacuate early Monday from a four-unit apartment building on the West River in Londonderry.
“The river was at our doorstep,” said Pajala. “We threw some dry clothes and our cats into the car and drove to higher ground.”
People check out a flooded road on July 10 in Chester, Vermont. Torrential rain and flooding has affected millions of people across the Northeast and south to North Carolina.
Scott Eisen / Getty Images
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers warned Monday evening that it expected two dams in Vermont — the Ball Mountain Dam in Jamaica and the Townshend Dam in the Townshend/Windham area — to release “large quantities of water over their spillways. This will result in severe flooding downstream of the dam.”
“We anticipate floodwaters to increase rapidly overnight, and we recommend taking precautions now. We encourage everyone to follow the guidance from their local emergency management officials,” the Corps’ New England District tweeted.
The slow-moving storm reached New England after hitting parts of New York and Connecticut on Sunday. Additional downpours in the region raised the potential for flash flooding; rainfall in certain parts of Vermont had exceeded 7 inches, the National Weather Service in Burlington said.
One of the worst-hit places was New York’s Hudson Valley, where a woman identified by police as Pamela Nugent, 43, died as she tried to escape her flooded home in the hamlet of Fort Montgomery.
The force of the flash flooding dislodged boulders, which rammed into the woman’s house and damaged part of its wall, Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus told The Associated Press. Two other people escaped.
“She was trying to get through (the flooding) with her dog,” Neuhaus said, “and she was overwhelmed by tidal wave-type waves.”
Officials say the storm has already wrought tens of millions of dollars in damage. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference Monday that the storm sent “cars swirling in our streets” and dumped a “historic” amount of rain.
Emergency personnel maneuver a boat that was used to rescue residents of flooded homes following flash flooding from torrential rain throughout the Lower Hudson Valley, in Stony Point, New York, on July 9, 2023.
Seth Harrison/USA Today Network via REUTERS
“Nine inches of rain in this community,” Hochul said during a briefing on a muddy street in Highland Falls. “They’re calling this a ‘1,000 year event.’”
As of Monday evening, several washed-out streets in Highland Falls remained impassable, leaving some residents stuck in their homes but otherwise OK, Police Chief Frank Basile said in a telephone interview. The village police station itself was full of mud and leaves after being flooded with about 5 inches of water, and a police car was swamped, Basile said.
A person surveyed damage on Monday near Bear Mountain State Park following a night of heavy rain and flooding, in Highland Falls, New York.
Getty Images
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said there were reports of flooding in central and western Massachusetts and that state emergency management officials were in touch with local authorities.
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point was pounded with more than 8 inches of rain that sent debris sliding onto some roads and washed others out. Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steven W. Gilland said recently arrived new cadets and others at the historic academy on the Hudson River were safe, but that assessing the damage will take time.
Atmospheric scientists say destructive flooding events across the globe have this in common: Storms are forming in a warmer atmosphere, making extreme rainfall a reality right now. The additional warming that scientists predict is coming will only make it worse.
The storm also interrupted air and rail travel. There were hundreds of flight cancellations at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports and more than 200 canceled at Boston’s Logan Airport in the last 24 hours, according to the FlightAware website. Amtrak temporarily suspended service between Albany and New York.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott tweeted that swift water rescue teams had conducted more than 10 rescues on Monday.
Among the buildings flooded Monday was the Weston Playhouse in Weston, Vermont, which had been performing “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” to sold-out audiences.
The Weston Theater Company’s executive artistic director Susanna Gellert said the call was made at around 4 a.m. to evacuate 11 people associated with the production to higher ground and another 15 in nearby Ludlow. The three-floor playhouse, which had been damaged during Irene, was also flooded, with the dressing room and props room under water.
“As a theater, we were just starting to get back from the COVID shutdown,” Gellert said. “To have this happen right now is painfully heartbreaking.”
NY State Police are asking motorists to avoid the Palisades Interstate Parkway in response to severe flooding. (New York State Police/New York State Police)
Highland Falls, West Point, Cornwall and parts of Rockland and Putnam counties were hardest hit, according to Ryan.
Gov. Hochul issued a state of emergency for Orange County in response to what she described as “life-threatening flooding,” urging residents living in affected areas to gather supplies and head for higher ground.
State police are instructing motorists to steer clear of the Palisades Interstate Parkway, Long Mountain Circle, Route 6 and the Bear Mountain Bridge due to major flooding.
NY State Police are asking motorists to avoid the Palisades Interstate Parkway in response to severe flooding. (New York State Police/New York State Police)
The Palisades Parkway northbound from exit 14 to Long Mountain Traffic Circle has been closed, state police said.
New York City was subject to a city-wide flash flood warning Sunday night into Monday morning due to excessive rainfall, and anyone living in basement apartments and flood-prone areas should be prepared to make for higher ground, officials said.
Lahore — At least 50 people, including eight children, have been killed by floods and landslides triggered by monsoon rains that have lashed Pakistan since last month, officials said Friday. The summer monsoon brings South Asia 70-80 percent of its annual rainfall between June and September every year. It’s vital for the livelihoods of millions of farmers and food security in a region of around two billion people, but it also brings devastation.
“Fifty deaths have been reported in different rain-related incidents all over Pakistan since the start of the monsoon on June 25,” a national disaster management official told AFP, adding that 87 people were injured during the same period.
Laborers carry vegetable sacks as they wade through floodwater after heavy monsoon rains in Lahore, Pakistan, July 5, 2023.
Sajjad/Xinhua/Getty
The majority of the deaths were in eastern Punjab province and were mainly due to electrocution and building collapses, official data showed.
In northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the bodies of eight children were recovered from a landslide in the Shangla district on Thursday, according to the emergency service Rescue 1122’s spokesman Bilal Ahmed Faizi.
He said rescuers were still searching for more children trapped in the debris.
Officials in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city, said it had received record-breaking rainfall on Wednesday, turning roads into rivers and leaving almost 35% of the population there without electricity and water this week.
The Meteorological Department has predicted more heavy rainfall across the country in the days ahead, and warned of potential flooding in the catchment areas of Punjab’s major rivers. The province’s disaster management authority said Friday that it was working to relocate people living along the waterways.
A man pulls a boy on a cart down a flooded road, amid heavy monsoon rainfall in Lahore, Pakistan, July 5, 2023.
Storms killed at least 27 people, including eight children, in the country’s northwest early last month alone.
Pakistan, which has the world’s fifth largest population, is responsible for less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to officials. However, it is one of the most vulnerable nations to the extreme weather caused by global warming.
Scientists in the region and around the world have issued increasingly urgent calls for action to slow global warming, including a chief scientist for the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), which released a study this year about the risks associated with the speed of glacier melt in the Himalayas.
“We need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as we can,” ICIMOD lead editor Dr. Philippus Wester told CBS News’ Arashd Zargar last month. “This is a clarion call. The world is not doing enough because we are still seeing an increase in the emissions year-on-year. We are not even at the point of a turnaround.”
The growing threat posed by hurricanes is costing Americans money before even a single drop of rain has fallen.
Homeowners in Florida and Louisiana have seen dizzying spikes in their insurance rates over the last two years, and those costs are likely to rise even higher, as reinsurers face growing expenses of their own.
This year, more than 7 million homes are at risk of a storm surge from a Category 5 hurricane, while more than 32 million face at least a moderate threat of wind damage, according to CoreLogic. In economic terms, $11.6 trillion of property is at risk, the property data provider calculated, a figure that has jumped 15% from last year due largely to inflation in the price of building materials.
“The bigger risk is driven by exposure,” said Jonathan Schneyer, senior catastrophe response manager at CoreLogic. “We’re still building lots of homes, sometimes very high-value homes, in areas that are still very risky from a natural hazard perspective. People like to live with a nice view — on the seashore, on a cliff, with a river view,” he said.
The state most exposed to financial losses from a hurricane is one that sees relatively few of them. New York has 790,000 properties, with a total reconstruction value of $400 billion, at risk, according to CoreLogic.
“You have a densely populated island, a couple of cities surrounding Manhattan, built up on the coastline a few feet above sea level,” Schneyer said. “If a storm were to make its way up to New York, there’s a lot more to lose there.”
Indeed, one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history — 2012’s Hurricane Sandy — caused $70 billion worth of damage as it wreaked havoc on New York and New Jersey. Last year, meanwhile, Hurricane Ian caused more than $100 billion in damage as it swept across Florida — equal to the state’s entire budget that year.
According to scientists, climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of hurricanes because warming air and ocean temperatures make the storms wetter and slower, resulting in more water cascading into affected areas. That can increase the tide of destruction.
Not just hurricanes
When it comes to flooding, however, a storm doesn’t have to get anywhere near hurricane strength to cause extensive damage. A recent analysis from the First Street Foundation found that more intense rainfall today poses growing risks of flooding to millions of homes, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast. That trend is likely worsen in the years to come, predicted the nonprofit group, which models climate-change risk.
“Nowhere across the country has seen a bigger increase in extreme precipitation events than the Midwest and the Northeast,” said Jeremy Porter, head of climate impacts at the First Street Foundation.
These regions have some of the most densely populated cities and oldest municipal infrastructure, making it more likely that rainwater will overwhelm drainage systems.
Only weeks ago, for example, intense thunderstorms led to hundreds of flight cancellations in the Northeast and flooded city streets, washing out bridges and rushing into basements from Maine to Philadelphia. First Street’s model predicts that these types of events will become much more common because of climate change.
“Half of the flood risk in the 100-year flood zone across the country isn’t accounted for by FEMA,” Porter said. “Of that difference, 65% of it is driven solely by precipitation flooding.”
As the label suggests, a 100-year flood event is one that is expected to occur once every century. But with climate change making regular rain far more severe, these extreme events are becoming much more frequent.
In New York City, Porter said, this type of 100-year event is now expected to occur once every 20 years. In Houston, it’s now every 23 years. But by midcentury, the frequency is expected to increase to once every 11 years.
Spiraling costs
More frequent hurricanes are already causing an exodus of insurers from some exposed regions. In Florida, home insurance rates are already triple the U.S. average. Also, multiple insurers in the state have gone belly-up in recent years, and premiums are expected to rise 40% this year, according to the Insurance Information Institute.
In Louisiana, the state’s insurer of last resort this year raised rates by an average of 63%. Across the U.S., 90% of homeowners are seeing rising insurance premiums, NPR reported last month.
Homes and property in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, Estero Island, damaged by Hurricane Ian, a Category 5 storm that struck Florida and the Carolinas in 2022.
Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group
So what are homeowners to do? In the absence of a national climate adaptation plan, Americans are making their own decisions, research suggests. A recent study from the University of Vermont found that during the previous decade, Americans moved out of the regions that were hardest-hit by hurricanes and heat waves, although more people moved into wildfire-prone areas.
“For many Americans, the risks and dangers of living in hurricane zones may be starting to outweigh the benefits of life in those areas,” co-author Gillian Galford said in a statement.
A tornado a quarter-of-a-mile wide ripped through the Texas Panhandle town of Perryton Thursday, leaving three people dead and dozens more injured, officials said. It was part of a severe storm system that also brought flash flooding to the Florida Panhandle. Hundreds of thousands of people remain without power across the South. Omar Villafranca reports from Perryton.
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The chaos continued in southern Ukraine Friday as security forces, emergency workers and regular citizens risked life and limb to evacuate people from a vast area flooded by the destruction of a crucial dam in Russian held territory. At least several square miles along a southern stretch of the Dnipro river, lined by industry and farmland, have been inundated by floodwater that’s swirling with debris, fuel and other contaminants.
Ukraine accused Russia of blowing up the Nova Kakhovka hydro-power plant and dam “from inside” early Tuesday morning, unleashing a torrent of water from the massive reservoir it held back onto the surrounding Kherson region.
The city of Kherson is less than 50 miles downstream from the broken dam. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said Friday in a social media post that four people were confirmed dead and at least 13 more were missing amid the flooding. He said some 2,412 people had been evacuated. A Russian official in the region put the death toll at eight.
Volunteers help to evacuate residents from a flooded area after the Nova Kakhovka dam was destroyed amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, in Kherson, southern Ukraine, June 8, 2023.
ALINA SMUTKO/REUTERS
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app that “hundreds of thousands of people” in towns and villages along the flooded Dnipro were struggling to find fresh drinking water.
“In more than 40 settlements, life is broken,” said the president, who’s top diplomat earlier this week accused Russia of blowing up the dam in a “heinous war crime.”
Russia, whose forces had occupied the key piece of infrastructure for months, claimed it was Ukrainian forces that damaged the dam, but Moscow has offered no evidence to back up the claim. Military analysts have said Vladimir Putin’s troops, who are facing a mounting counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces, stood the most to gain with the dam’s destruction.
An infographic shows the stretch of the Dnipro river, in southern Ukraine, south of the destroyed Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant and dam, left at risk of flooding.
Yasin Demirci/Anadolu Agency/Getty
The dam was also a key road across the Dnipro river, which in much of southern Ukraine serves as a geographic barrier between Ukrainian-held ground to the west, and Russian-held ground to the east. By flooding a wide stretch along the southern portion of the river, the border between the two sides has been enlarged by several times, which will complicate any concerted bid by Ukrainian troops to push Russia back in the parts of the Kherson region it still occupies.
In the city of Kherson, which Ukraine reclaimed from Russian forces last year, and the flooded areas around it, rescue efforts in the disaster zone have been severely hampered by the fact that it is also an active war zone.
A flooded area is seen after the Nova Kakhovka dam was breached amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Kherson, Ukraine, June 8, 2023.
STRINGER/REUTERS
Evacuating residents is a deadly business. Boats move swiftly through the flood-stricken areas, ferrying people not only to dry land, but also away from the ongoing Russian bombardment.
News cameras rolled as one elderly man was rescued by volunteers from his submerged home, only to be hit moments later in the head by flying shrapnel as a shell landed nearby.
Asked what it was like operating under such conditions, one rescue worker just blurted out, “adrenaline!” before indicating that he needed to get moving because of incoming fire.
Ukraine’s Chief Rabbi, Moshe Reuven Azman, was among those helping emergency crews bring residents to safety on Thursday when more shells landed nearby. He was recording a video for social media about the efforts when he and his fellow rescuers were forced to duck for cover as explosions rang out nearby.
We are now in Kherson, we’re trying to evacuate people … miraculously survived. Details later pic.twitter.com/oHcKcTcw0h
— Chief Rabbi Of Ukraine Moshe Azman (@RabbiUkraine) June 8, 2023
“We are now in Kherson, we’re trying to evacuate people… miraculously survived,” he said later in a tweet with the video.
North of Kherson, meanwhile, on the long front line that stretches up and down the full length of eastern Ukraine, the country’s forces have stepped up offensive operations around the beleaguered city of Bakhmut, which was only recently taken by Russian troops.
Ukrainian officials have said they’re making steady gains along the front line in recent days and weeks but, despite intense speculation, they have not declared a formal start to the long-awaited full-scale counteroffensive.
U.S. officials told CBS News this week that the counteroffensive appeared to be in its opening phases, and they’ve noted an increase in fighting in a key region along the southern front line.
Housing markets are undergoing a fundamental shift because of higher mortgage rates and as global central banks keep up the inflation fight by hiking interest rates. Against this backdrop, some — including a ‘Big Short’ investor — fear the real estate sector is overlooking a systemic issue: flood risk.
A ‘Big Short’ investor fears an often-overlooked climate risk could see history repeating itself in the housing market.
Dave Burt, CEO of investment research firm DeltaTerra Capital, was one of the few skeptics who recognized the real estate sector was teetering on the brink of collapse in 2007.
He helped two of the protagonists of Michael Lewis’ bestselling book “The Big Short” bet against the mortgage market in the lead-up to the 2008 economic collapse. As it turned out, they were right and made millions.
Now, Burt believes the mortgage market is underestimating another systemic issue: flood risk. If realized, he warns the fallout could resemble the massive correction seen during the global financial crisis.
“Ultimately, until people have good information about what these climate-related costs are going to look like, we’re creating new problems every day. I think that’s really the crux of the matter,” Burt told CNBC.
So, why does the U.S. housing market seem to be underestimating the cost of flooding? What does this mean for homeowners and homebuyers in the U.K. and around the world? And what can be done to mitigate this risk?
Corcoran, California — California’s Central Valley produces a quarter of the nation’s food, but a parade of atmospheric rivers this winter caused severe storms that destroyed thousands of acres of crops.
The storms, which have been linked to climate change, swamped 150,000 acres in the region, according to numbers from Kings County officials.
About 99% of the nation’s pistachio supply is grown in Central California, per data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Pistachio farmer Nader Malakan estimates that about 1,200 acres of pistachio crops were destroyed, to the tune of $15 million.
“It’s going to hurt,” he told CBS News. “It’s a lot of money.”
A view of rows of flooded pistachio trees from the reemerging Tulare Lake, in California’s Central Valley on April 27, 2023, near Corcoran, California.
Getty Images
The flood damage in Kings County this winter is estimated to have caused $1 billion in losses, county officials said.
Perched outside Corcoran, Tulare Lake, which was drained a century ago — and still didn’t even exist a few months ago — has returned with a vengeance and looks like an ocean. In the mountains above, one of California’s largest snowpacks on record is starting to melt. According to forecasters, high temperatures in the coming weeks could prove catastrophic.
“You kind of get an overwhelming sense of doom in a way,” said Lakeshore Dairy farmer Brandon Goedhardt. “How do you stop this?”
In March, flooding forced thousands of people to evacuate the Northern California agricultural community of Pajaro, after the Pajaro River’s levee was breached.
Goedhardt and other farmers are using massive piles of dirt to reinforce and add onto a nearly 15-mile-long levee designed to hold back the rising tide. While the farmers said they are receiving some assistance from FEMA agents on the ground, they are the ones footing the bill.
Goedhardt said there is nowhere safe enough, or large enough, to move his barn of cows.
Kings County Supervisor Doug Verbund said crews will finish the levee before the next major melt, but there is no guarantee it will hold.
“Mother Nature is in control,” Verbund said. “We’re just, you know, tying to put our finger in the dike as we go.”
Goedhardt said it is all hands on deck this week, but their hearts are sinking.
“We’re a family farm,” Goedhardt said. “You know the families have been doing this for generations, and I’d hate to be the one at the wheel, and we lose it all.”
More than 100 hazardous industrial sites on California’s coast are at risk of flooding severely — and spreading contaminants — due to rising sea levels if climate change continues to worsen, according to a study released Tuesday.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles and Berkeley, found that 129 sites including oil refineries, sewage treatment plants and nuclear and fossil fuel power plants could see flooding by 2050 and 423 hazardous sites could flood by 2100.
When flooded, these sites could pollute and contaminate nearby land, air and groundwater.
Communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles/Orange County regions are most at risk, the study concluded.
The flooding and resulting exposure to contaminants would probably disproportionately impact the socially disadvantaged, who would be less likely to be able to evacuate by car and to return to rebuild their homes. They include people of color, the elderly, low income residents and people in linguistically isolated households, the study said.
“Flood induced contaminant releases are more likely to impact low income households and people of color because they are more likely to live near industrial and hazardous waste facilities,” the study reads. “Socially disadvantaged communities also have fewer resources to anticipate, mitigate, cope with,or recover from the effects of flooding.”
The study used local county and Census data to determine the flooding’s possible impact on California residents.
California isn’t the only state facing potentially damaging floods due to climate change. Florida has been experiencing a consistent sea level rise that is leading to more frequent flooding, even inland.
In the study, researchers suggest prioritizing environmental justice when it comes to policy and community planning.
Communities along the Mississippi River in states including Iowa and Wisconsin are experiencing some of the worst river flooding in decades as snow melt feeds into the river. Meteorologist Nick Stewart has more.
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Residents in parts of Florida are having trouble fueling up their cars as last week’s historic flooding has led to a gas shortage. The flooding has caused distribution problems, slowing the normal delivery of fuel. Manuel Bojorquez reports.
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