When a disaster strikes, the narrative tends to follow one of two paths: lamenting the lack of preparedness, or blasting the hype as overblown. In the case of Hurricane Irene, we seemed to jump back and forth between these two storylines in the space of just a few hours.
Transit shutdowns and massive evacuation orders in New York and other major cities may have seemed like too much after the storm didn't quite live up to expectations in those places, but even with hurricane-force winds making only cameo appearances for much of the East Coast, Irene has left behind chaos and massive flooding disasters in a number of places, most notably Vermont and New Jersey. The Newark Star-Ledger said Irene "will go down as one of the most damaging storms to hit New Jersey in a century, if not in recorded history."
More than 4 million people along the storm's path have lost power, and at least 21 deaths have been blamed on Irene so far. Early cost estimates put the damage from wind alone at more than $1 billion, and the floods will clearly represent the biggest chunk of damage once they are all tallied up. Some preliminary guesses place the total at more than $7 billion, and perhaps much higher; no matter what the total ends up being, Irene easily joins an incredible list of billion-dollar extreme weather disasters that have occurred just this year.
In Vermont, generally not considered a primary hurricane target, many towns were almost completely inundated with water. Brattleboro was covered in several feet of floodwater, and the capital city of Montpelier apparently face ongoing danger as well. The state's governor, Peter Shumlin, called the flooding "catastrophic."
And though larger cities may have been spared the worst-case scenarios envisioned last week, Irene still left her mark. In New York, extensive flooding has been reported in Coney Island, Lower Manhattan, and elsewhere, but the storm surge many worried could inundate huge chunks of the city fell short of the direst levels. Still, the Metropolitan Transit Authority expects a lengthy cleanup process, perhaps diminished because of evacuations and the amazing shutdown of the entire system.
Here in Philadelphia, which the Times called possibly the worst-hit Northeastern city, I took a blustery, post-storm walk across town toward the Schuylkill River, which along with the Delaware sandwiches Center City Philly. Small twigs and leaves littered the streets, but I saw only one downed power line along the way (and it was more "low-hanging" than actually "down"). The Schuylkill, though, had inundated the park that runs alongside it, along with some freight train tracks. It was cresting at about four feet above flood stage levels, close to its 1869 record. The suburbs reportedly got hit hardest in this area, and Irene is being blamed for at least one local fatality.
Irene is gone now, blowing out its last few breaths over Canada, but many in its path haven't yet seen its worst. President Obama addressed the nation yesterday, saying: "The impacts of this storm will be felt for some time, and the recovery effort will last for weeks or longer." One wonders, though, if those long-felt impacts will include a focus on addressing climate change's role in this storm and those that will follow it.
As Andrew Freedman, an editor and analyst with Climate Central and OnEarth contributor, told me: precipitation extremes are increasing in frequency and severity in many areas, and this is due at least in part to manmade climate change. Those precipitation extremes led to both New York and Philadelphia having their wettest single months on record. Philadelphia broke its record before Irene even arrived.
"The flooding in the northern Mid-Atlantic and New England is very clearly connected to the extremely wet conditions prior to Irene," Freedman told me. "Because of the prior rainfall, the flood danger posed by the tropical storm was well known to forecasters and communicated to the public by NOAA, although the national media sent all of their reporters to the beaches and to Lower Manhattan to cover the landfall, rather than inland to cover the more likely killer."
Which explains, of course, the knee-jerk response to the "overblown" hype about Irene. New York City may have dodged this particular bullet, but it may not be so lucky next time; and a quarter of a million people there live within a potential storm surge area that has grown because of sea level rise. Will we face up to these growing threats and be better prepared next time?
Image: Flooding in Vermont via Sevencrows/Flickr
