#climate change disasters

[rjzimmerman]

There Is No Climate Haven. We All Live in Florida Now. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times Op-Ed from Margaret Renkl:

In the aftermath of Helene, more than 225 people are confirmed dead, with hundreds still unaccounted for. And new research suggests that the death toll will continue to rise for years, long after the immediate losses have been fully tallied.

Nevertheless, the usual chorus of blame erupted on social media even as the rain was still falling:

Why didn’t those people just leave? Why do they keep living in places where rivers repeatedly flood, or where forests routinely catch fire, or where hurricanes so often make landfall? Why don’t they just leave drought-prone areas where rivers don’t carry enough water for the people who already live there, let alone for those who continue to pour in?

I understand the impulse to believe that Southerners bring such misfortunes upon themselves by voting for scoundrels who deny the realities of climate change. When Republican officials routinely vote against measures that increase climate resilience, or when they support unchecked development on the very wetlands that protect human communities from storm surges, or when they gut legislation that would require new construction to be storm resistant, and when they then tell outrageous lies about the federal government’s disaster response — it’s very hard not to believe that we deserve what we get down here.

But a hurricane or a flood or a deadly heat wave or a forest fire or a drought can befall anyone. Climate change has stacked the deck against all of us. Even before Helene made landfall, Appalachia was already saturated. Rivers were at record heights, and hot, wet soil could absorb no more water. Worse, such conditions gave the hurricane new fuel.

Take a look at a map of “disaster prone” areas in the United States. It’s a huge chunk of the country. Already there’s no realistic way to crowd everyone into the places that are currently somewhat safe. Even the safe places aren’t really safe, or won’t be safe for long. Last year, Vermont got hammered by catastrophic flooding. Buncombe County, N.C., among the areas hardest hit by Helene, was until very recently considered a “climate haven.”

There’s no such thing as a climate haven anymore. We all live in Florida now.

Even the few remaining Americans who still dismiss climate change outright must surely know this. They simply choose to parrot the talking points of Republican politicians and right-wing media figures who are paid by Big Oil — or Big Construction — to lie to vulnerable Americans and leave them ever more vulnerable.

There’s no denying that we would be in much better shape today if utility companies and the fossil-fuel industry had not launched a huge disinformation campaign to cover up the truth of climate change decades ago, and if the Republican Party and right-wing media had not embraced it.

Yet they continue to embrace it even now. Climate disinformation frequently runs rampant in the aftermath of climate-related disasters, but ridiculous rumors and conspiracy theories have reached new levels in the wake of Helene. “I have been doing disaster work for nearly 20 years, and I cannot think of another acute disaster where there has been this much misinformation,” Dr. Montano told The Times.

[reasonsforhope]

As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.

Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on the city over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as the planet warms.

The city’s water managers, though, were ready and waiting. Like other urban areas around the world, in recent years LA has been transforming into a “sponge city,” replacing impermeable surfaces, like concrete, with permeable ones, like dirt and plants. It has also built out “spreading grounds,” where water accumulates and soaks into the earth.

With traditional dams and all that newfangled spongy infrastructure, between February 4 and 7 the metropolis captured 8.6 billion gallons of stormwater, enough to provide water to 106,000 households for a year. For the rainy season in total, LA has accumulated 14.7 billion gallons.

Long reliant on snowmelt and river water piped in from afar, LA is on a quest to produce as much water as it can locally. “There's going to be a lot more rain and a lot less snow, which is going to alter the way we capture snowmelt and the aqueduct water,” says Art Castro, manager of watershed management at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “Dams and spreading grounds are the workhorses of local stormwater capture for either flood protection or water supply.”

Centuries of urban-planning dogma dictates using gutters, sewers, and other infrastructure to funnel rainwater out of a metropolis as quickly as possible to prevent flooding. Given the increasingly catastrophic urban flooding seen around the world, though, that clearly isn’t working anymore, so now planners are finding clever ways to capture stormwater, treating it as an asset instead of a liability. “The problem of urban hydrology is caused by a thousand small cuts,” says Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley. “No one driveway or roof in and of itself causes massive alteration of the hydrologic cycle. But combine millions of them in one area and it does. Maybe we can solve that problem with a thousand Band-Aids.”

Or in this case, sponges. The trick to making a city more absorbent is to add more gardens and other green spaces that allow water to percolate into underlying aquifers—porous subterranean materials that can hold water—which a city can then draw from in times of need. Engineers are also greening up medians and roadside areas to soak up the water that’d normally rush off streets, into sewers, and eventually out to sea...

To exploit all that free water falling from the sky, the LADWP has carved out big patches of brown in the concrete jungle. Stormwater is piped into these spreading grounds and accumulates in dirt basins. That allows it to slowly soak into the underlying aquifer, which acts as a sort of natural underground tank that can hold 28 billion gallons of water.

During a storm, the city is also gathering water in dams, some of which it diverts into the spreading grounds. “After the storm comes by, and it's a bright sunny day, you’ll still see water being released into a channel and diverted into the spreading grounds,” says Castro. That way, water moves from a reservoir where it’s exposed to sunlight and evaporation, into an aquifer where it’s banked safely underground.

On a smaller scale, LADWP has been experimenting with turning parks into mini spreading grounds, diverting stormwater there to soak into subterranean cisterns or chambers. It’s also deploying green spaces along roadways, which have the additional benefit of mitigating flooding in a neighborhood: The less concrete and the more dirt and plants, the more the built environment can soak up stormwater like the actual environment naturally does.

As an added benefit, deploying more of these green spaces, along with urban gardens, improves the mental health of residents. Plants here also “sweat,” cooling the area and beating back the urban heat island effect—the tendency for concrete to absorb solar energy and slowly release it at night. By reducing summer temperatures, you improve the physical health of residents. “The more trees, the more shade, the less heat island effect,” says Castro. “Sometimes when it’s 90 degrees in the middle of summer, it could get up to 110 underneath a bus stop.”

LA’s far from alone in going spongy. Pittsburgh is also deploying more rain gardens, and where they absolutely must have a hard surface—sidewalks, parking lots, etc.—they’re using special concrete bricks that allow water to seep through. And a growing number of municipalities are scrutinizing properties and charging owners fees if they have excessive impermeable surfaces like pavement, thus incentivizing the switch to permeable surfaces like plots of native plants or urban gardens for producing more food locally.

So the old way of stormwater management isn’t just increasingly dangerous and ineffective as the planet warms and storms get more intense—it stands in the way of a more beautiful, less sweltering, more sustainable urban landscape. LA, of all places, is showing the world there’s a better way.

-via Wired, February 19, 2024

[moved-to-slayfk]

posting here because this just doesn’t feel right to talk about in the horseimagebarn voice but this is extremely important to talk about.

my partner and i have returned to our hometown to stay with her family and my own has gotten a hotel here too (they moved to the town we currently live in after we did) so we are all safe and out of the thick of it

however there are tens of thousands of people who are not both in my own town and in the many surrounding it. appalachia will take an extremely long time to recover from this and there are more storms on the way. all i see on social media right now is people asking for shelter because their homes have been destroyed, or people asking for help searching for family members who are missing. hundreds of trees have fallen. hundreds of homes have flooded. roads are literally falling apart. preexisting sinkholes due to shitty pipes are opening up and consuming land. dams are on the verge of bursting and the only way to stop it is to release water so quickly it floods whole towns. all but one of our cell towers are down, so only people with at&t have service and the rest can’t contact anyone. over half the town still doesn’t have power. a major water supply issue occurred and the entire town is on a water boil order with no electricity to boil with. people are trapped in their homes and workplaces or out on the street because they have nowhere to go. law enforcement is blocking off roads but trapping people in the process. people have to be rescued by helicopter. our animal shelter has no water or power and boarding facilities have been flooded. entire villages like chimney rock nc are gone, and entire cities like asheville are cut off from the rest of the state and are completely inaccessible. ALL OF THE ROADS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA ARE CLOSED. 400+ roads are closed because they are unsafe . that is INSANE!!!

when people say that climate change isn’t real, they don’t know what they’re talking about. climate change and its father capitalism are only going to continue to worsen lives in every way possible. i live in the mountains and our infrastructure is completely unprepared to handle hurricanes and it’s only going to get worse. it’s such a strange and eye-opening experience to live something like this when you think that it could never happen to you because that type of weather shouldn’t reach you in your environment. climate change doesn’t care where you live. it’s real.

western north carolina and the rest of the southeast that has been hit by helene need help. more people need to be talking about this so that the government DOES SOMETHING because the government historically fucking hates appalachia and it still does!!! the major state institution near me took DAYS to respond despite being the only place in town with power and wifi connection because they had to wait for the state to approve their response—they could have allowed thousands of people to evacuate days prior to the hurricane hitting us but they didn’t do anything before or after until it was too late!!! it’s bullshit!!! PLEASE get talking about this because something has to be done. climate change is going to continue happening and our mountains and the people in them are going to suffer immensely. hundreds if not thousands are now homeless. please talk about this look at the footage online of the wreckage and look how quickly our infrastructure crumbled. we need better. the people of appalachia deserve better.

i’ll get back to posting horses soon. but for now this is a lot. my friends are homeless and my family had to get off the mountain or be trapped there without power and water for days. we’re all safe but exhausted. i hope everyone who has been affected by this is staying safe. if you are in western nc, dm me. when i come back, if you’re in my area, im happy to bring supplies. stay safe everyone

[politijohn]

Source

[lifewithchronicpain]

Climate change has made many natural disasters worse than they were before, especially hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, and flooding. So I am curious:

Please reblog for more votes!

In the Tags: you answer + general area you live in. No need to be too specific.

[beauty-funny-trippy]

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is begging president Trump to reconsider the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) denial of an emergency disaster declaration to aid in the recovery from a series of destructive tornadoes and storms that ravaged the red state in March. Sanders, a former White House press secretary to Trump, wrote a lengthy letter last week to her ex-boss detailing the devastation caused by the storms and begging him to reconsider FEMA’s denial. It’s not surprising that states are struggling to get disaster-recovery aid from Trump. In January, he floated eliminating the agency entirely. And last month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promised to “eliminate FEMA.” So far, Trump is still refusing to send any help. Remember when people were warning that Trump just wants your vote — that he doesn't care about you? This is what they were talking about.

[fuck-u-maga]

It's sick how obvious this is

[crionic-dubs]

[sweetreveriee]

WILDFIRE AID RESOURCES MASTERLIST

these are all the places ive found helping those affected by the la fires. please stay safe everyone <3

______________________

FREE THINGS:

Planet Fitness Offers Free Things (ends January 15)

Form To Get Free Temporary Housing From AirBnB (space limited, eligibility criteria required)

List of Restaurants Offering Free Meals (updated January 9)

______________________

UPDATED MAPS:

CalFire

Watch Duty

______________________

INFORMATION:

List of Updated Info

Spreadsheet of Resources (by location and type of aid)

If you have anything to add to the list linked above, comment here

______________________

SHELTER:

If you need shelter, text "SHELTER" and your zip code to 43362 for nearest open shelters

open shelters:

Arcadia Community Center – 375 Campus Drive, Arcadia, CA 91007

Ritchie Valens Recreation Center – 10736 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Pacoima, CA 91331

Pan Pacific Recreational Center – 7600 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036

Westwood Recreation Center – 1350 Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025

El Camino Real Charter High School – 5440 Valley Circle Blvd, Woodland Hills, CA 91367

Pasadena Civic Center – 300 East Green Street, Pasadena, CA 91101

Pomona Fairplex – 1101 W McKinley Ave, Pomona, CA 91768

YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles - locations unaffected by fire are open and providing free childcare to those who need it. also offering evacuation sites, temporary shelter, basic amenities, and showers.

for updates and locations click here

______________________

TRANSPORTATION:

CalTrans Updated Road Closure List

Fare collection suspended at Metro through January 9. A list of updates and changes that occurred because of the fires and winds can be found here.

Lyft is offering two free rides of 25$ each (50$ total) for 500 riders using code CAFIRERELIEF25. offer ends January 15.

Uber is offering a free ride of up to 40$ for those who use code WILFIRE25 in the wallet section of the app

______________________

ANIMAL CARE:

List of Shelters (check capacity and availability)

______________________

MENTAL HEALTH:

LA County set up a 24/7 hotline to help with anxiety, distress, and grief. Call (800) 854-7771.

______________________

WHAT TO PACK:

remember the six p's:

people and pets

papers, phone numbers and important documents

prescriptions, vitamins, and eyeglasses

pictures and irreplaceable memorabilia

personal computer, hard drive, and disks

plastic (debit, credit, ATM cards) and cash

what to put in your "go bag":

face masks/face coverings

three-day food supply (nonperishable)

three gallons of bottled water per person

map marked with AT LEAST two evacuation routes

basic first aid and medical supplies

sanitation supplies

toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair brush, deodorant

period products

prescriptions and medications

a change of clothes (bring AT LEAST one warm coat)

spare eyeglasses or contacts (if needed)

extra set of car keys

chargers for your devices

cash, credit/debit cards, traveler's checks

flashlight

battery powered radio

EXTRA BATTERIES

(copies of) important documents such as birth certificates, passports, insurance, a list of emergency contacts and phone numbers

your wallet (ID CARD)

food, water, and meds for your pets (checklist here)

a can opener

not necessary but you might want to bring:

valuable items that can be easily carried

family pictures that cannot be replaced

blankets

more than a day's worth of clothes

important school supplies (for students)

books

trophies, medals, certificates, awards

pens and paper

self defense tools (pepper spray, pocket knives, etc) (NOT ENCOURAGING VIOLENCE. FOR SELF DEFENSE ONLY)

extra shoes

fuzzy socks

non-essential hygiene products

gum/breath mints

ALWAYS PREPARE BEFOREHAND. EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT DIRECTLY IMPACTED, THE FIRES CAN GROW. KEEP YOUR BAGS IN THE CAR SO YOU CAN EVACUATE QUICKLY IF NEEDED.

______________________

WANT TO HELP?

Best Friends Animal Society

LA Fire Department (donations sent directly to first responders)

LA Food Bank

LA Works

MusiCares

Salvation Army

Santa D'Or (in need of fosters for displaced cats)

Silverlake Lounge (also offering a communal gathering place)

Sweet Relief Musicians Fund

Dream Center (in need of volunteers + non-perishable food items)

The Red Cross

We Are Moving the Needle

World Central Kitchen

United Way of Greater LA

As of January 9, the Westwood Recreation Center and Pan Pacific Park are at full capacity and not accepting additional donations. Check with all organizations by phone, text, or email before donating if possible.

______________________

IF THERE'S ANYTHING I MISSED OR MESSED UP PLEASE ADD IT OR LET ME KNOW SO I CAN FIX IT. REBLOG TO SPREAD AWARENESS!!!!!!!! stay safe everyone

[destielmemenews]

"Its dangerous eye and eyewall could come ashore anywhere from Cedar Key at the north to Naples at the south – including possibly in the Tampa or Ft. Myers areas.

It’s only been 10 days since Helene scoured Florida’s Gulf Coast with storm surge and slammed into the Big Bend as a Category 4. Now, officials are asking residents – still in recovery mode – to evacuate or prepare for another life-threatening storm."

source 1

source 2

source 3

[ludinusdaleth]

every other southerner/appalachian is screaming this at the top of their lungs too but im begging folk to stop losing their humanity when this region suffers. all alleged empathy blue state folk have is flown out the window when we're freezing or flooding to death. is it so hard to remember we're all human? so hard to process the nuance that good folk exist in a place you think is bad, and even the folk you think are bad dont deserve to die from the malicious apathy of their manipulative politicians? so hard to get that the death of human beings you'll never know the names of shouldn't be celebrated just because you assume they voted red? we are all people. i dont understand how you can be so cruel.

[canichangemyblogname]

Just had to explain to my mother that most of the people who’ve lost their homes in the Palisades fire take in an average income very close to her father’s pension. “But the news is showing homes like Paris Hilton’s—”

The news is a business. It gets clicks and views through what is sensational. No one is tuning in to watch Grandpa Joe’s home that he built with his wife in ‘66 burn to the ground. No one is reading and watching because Andres and Valeria’s house where they’ve been raising their three kids burned down.

Most of the people affected *are* middle class. The fire is consuming entire apartment complexes, and as a member of the renter class I know we don’t rent for funsies. We rent because we cannot afford a home/mortgage.

Multi-million dollar homes burning to the ground is flashy, and focusing on that to the detriment of the stories of everyone else is preventing class empathy. And my “conspiracy” is that this is a feature, not a bug, of American news/media.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Flood warnings and alerts across England right now- I hope everyone is able to stay safe and in their homes.

But don't let anyone tell you this is normal! It's a predicatable impact of climate change, but it isn't normal.

[wachinyeya]

Birds Sing Anew After Residents of New Orleans Ninth Ward Restore 40-Acre Wetland to Historic Glory https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/birds-sing-anew-from-within-40-acre-wetland-restored-by-residents-of-n-orleans-historic-lower-ninth/

The Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans has recently witnessed an incredible eco-renaissance following decades of damage and neglect.

Led by a local community development group, a 40-acre wetlands park has been restored to glories past with hundreds of local trees that attract over a hundred species of birds, plus joggers, picnickers, and nature lovers besides.

The story begins with Rashida Ferdinand, founder of Sankofa Community Development Corporation (CDC). Growing up in this historic part of New Orleans, where Black homeownership thrived, where Fats Domino was born, and where locals routinely went out into the wetlands to catch fish and crustaceans, she watched as it suffered from years of neglect.

Poor drainage, ruined roads, illegal trash dumping, and unmitigated damage from hurricanes slowly wasted the wetland away until it was a derelict eyesore.

In the name of restoring this wild heritage indicative of the culture in the Lower Ninth, and in order to protect her communities from flooding, Ferdinand founded the Sankofa CDC, and in 2014 entered into an agreement with the City of New Orleans for the restoration of Sankofa—a 40-acre section of neglected wetlands in the heart of the Lower Ninth.

The loss of Sankofa’s potential to dampen flooding from storms meant that over the years dozens of houses and properties were flooded and damaged beyond the ability of the inhabitants to recover. Forced out by a combination of nature’s fury and government failure, the cultural heritage of the community was receding along with the floodwaters.

Ferdinand knew that restoring natural flood barriers like Sankofa was key to protecting her community.

“Hurricane protection is a major concern in the community, but there’s a lack of trust in the infrastructure systems that are supposed to protect us,” Ferdinand told the Audubon Society.

Today, Sankofa Wetlands Park is a sight to behold. Hiking trails snake through a smattering of ponds and creeks, where bald cypresses and water tupelo trees continue to grow and cling to the ground even during storms. Picnic benches have appeared, wheelchair-accessible trails connect sections of the park to parts of the Lower Ninth, and local businesses are seeing more visitors.

Visiting birders have recorded sightings of over 100 species of songbirds, ducks, near-shore waders of all kinds, egrets, and herons, and the park also acts as a home and refuge for otters, beavers, and a variety of amphibians and reptiles.

It needed a lot of work though. Thousands of invasive tallow trees had to be uprooted. 27,000 cubic meters of illegally dumped trash compacted into the dirt had to be removed. A 60-year-old canal dug by the US Army Corps of Engineers had to be disconnected, and all new native flora had to be planted by hand.

Audubon says that Ferdinand routinely can’t believe her eyes when she looks at the transformation of Sankofa into its current state.

“Seeing butterflies, birds, and other pollinators in the park is a sign of a healthy ecosystem,” she says. “All we had to do was create the right conditions.”

Slated for official completion in 2025 with an outdoor amphitheater, interpretive signage, and additional trails, Ferdinand and the CDC have their eyes set on an even larger area of wetlands to the north of Sankofa.

Along the way, Ferdinand and the CDC attracted many helping hands, and entered into many partnerships, But the catalyst for change arose from the spirit and determination of one woman in the right place at the right time, for the benefit of hundreds in this historic heart of a historic city.

[nonokoko13]

[A Tiktok with a woman speaking while showing pictures and videos of Spain current situation. She says the following:

"Of course the *DANA couldn't have been avoided, but the way in which we act in the face of such a serious meteorological alert and how we manage it and how we organize ourselves is a political responsibility. Of course, the management of the Valencian Community government of the *PP is taking its toll on the citizens.

Of course it would have been different if the Valencian government had not eliminated the emergency unit, an initiative that was promoted by the previous socialist government and which for the PP was an "unnecessary expense". Now, in raising their salaries and spending 17 million euros on bullfighting, of course they did not skimp.

Of course, the disaster could have been mitigated if they had not waited until 8pm to send the first alarm to citizens' mobile phones. Of course, the effects of the flood would have been less if companies and institutions had not forced citizens to continue working. And of course, this will continue to happen with the climate crisis as long as many continue to cut back on public services and prioritize production and cash over our lives."]

*DANA: isolated depression at high levels. This is the name used for this meteorological phenomenon

*PP: stands for Popular Party / People's Party, a Spanish political party located between the center-right and the right of the political spectrum that is currently in charge of the decisions in the Valencian Community government, including the disappearance of the emergency unit

Some companies who forced their employees to go to work despite the floodings were Ikea and Mercadona, as shown in this video.

I am leaving this here because once this goes away I do not wish that the evidence of those at fault disappears