As evidenced by the last several years, intense rainfalls are becoming the norm in our neck of the woods.
Tuesday’s rains dumped almost 3 inches in two hours in parts of town.
Such an intense amount can overwhelm a city’s infrastructure. There’s simply no way storm sewers can handle that much water at once.
Wednesday morning, city crews were siphoning water from the floor of the Community Recreation Building in Riverside Park. Here’s to hoping it’s salvageable this time around.
Exacerbating Tuesday’s downpour was an already saturated ground from last week’s rains which, while appreciably more moderate, were nonetheless substantial. We’re now 12 inches over normal precipation levels for this time of year.
Experts say we can expect weather events like Tuesday’s to become our new normal.
The planet is warming. For each degree Celsius it heats up, the air’s capacity for water vapor goes up by about 7 percent. The heavier the atmosphere, the more intense its release through downpours like Tuesday’s.
In the last 25 years, the global temperature has increased 1.29 degrees Celsius.
2024 was the Earth’s hottest year since global record keeping began in 1850. The 10 warmest years have all occurred during the last decade.
The primary culprit, long-established, are the human-produced greenhouse gases emitted from fossil-fuel based industries. Sadly, efforts to reduce those emissions appear to depend on who is in elected office. As for the United States, President Donald Trump is rolling back measures to address climate change, including rescinding the development of renewable energy and dismantling federal air quality and carbon pollution regulations.
Such decisions force the rest of us to adapt to the consequences.
Going forward, it’s even more important for communities to update zoning regulations and building codes so that new construction and infrastructure are built in areas less prone to flooding.
Residents should also be encouraged to purchase flood insurance to cover property losses, and invest in flood-proofing measures even to the point of elevating their homes, as several did after the 2007 flood.
While helpful, those are but reactionary measures. Real solutions demand addressing the root cause.
To paraphrase Lincoln, government exists to do together what we can’t do alone. When our leaders refuse to accept such responsibility, they fail their constituents.
— Susan Lynn
