IMPASSE: Flooding like this by the Delaware River is forcing towns to plan
for severe weather.
Image: Getty images
In Brief
- Frustrated by political gridlock in Washington, D.C., over climate change policy, cities and states are changing infrastructure on their own to counteract severe weather that is killing more people and destroying more property.
- Dubuque, Iowa, has exhumed a buried creek to reduce storm flooding. Southern Nevada is digging new intake pipes under Lake Mead to offset drought. Keene, N.H., is replacing roads with permeable pavement that allows heavy rain to seep through instead of rising.
- Adaptation is best planned by municipalities because solutions must be tailored to local problems, but courageous leaders are often needed to rally support.
For a century workers flocked to Dubuque, Iowa, as they raised new generations of laborers, they built houses, shops and streets that eventually covered over the Bee Branch Creek. The water gurgled through underground pipes out of sight and largely out of memory.
Until the rains came. On May 16, 1999, 5.6 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. The creek pipes and storm sewers overflowed, blowing out manhole covers and turning streets into chest-deep raging rivers. Hundreds of homes and businesses were flooded.
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4 Comments
Add CommentJoe Ooptook of Nunuvit says - Every morning after the six oclock news I go out to feed the dogs, yesterday morning the Sun was over there. This morning it's over here, What The Hell?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this============================
Bruce Voigt says - Eratic Earth tipping has the Earth changing its exposure to both Moon and Sun!
It is of GREAT IMPORTANCE to establish a constant monitoring system for Canada's North Magnetic Pole Movements. ============================
It is inevitable the powers that be will be forced to let you know that the earth is and has been moving about it's AXIS changing exposure to both Sun and Moon.
I am wondering how they are going to do it.
This is an interesting and important article that is seriously marred by numerous internal duplications. I wonder hopw many people just stopped reading it when it began to repeat?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisafter a record amount of precipitation in 2011 here in the Hartford CT area- near 67" and three extreme weather events, all causing damage and economic carnage- the Government here understands what is happening. The states large Insurance Industry knows the climate is changing. This is the 'new normal' we all dread to see what extremes will begin to look like.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConnecticut is located in a geographically stormy part of the continent- climate change is amplifying this.
Drought and Flood are not new phenomena. Cities have had to deal with these problems since there were cities. Go back and read the accounts of any year. You will find accounts of devastating floods, of famine induced by drought. It has always been thus, even before 'Global Warming'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt will probably always be this way too. If it rains heavily in one region, then it doesn't rain so much in another.