Storms, Flooding, & Extreme Heat Will Transform The American South

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Last week, Hurricane Helene dumped as much as 4 feet of rain on parts of North Carolina, leading to devastating flooding in places like Asheville that have long considered themselves to be safe from the ravages of more powerful storms. As Bill McKibben points out, no one should be the least bit surprised, as the science is crystal clear. For every one degree C increase in average ocean surface temperatures, the atmosphere is capable of holding 7% more moisture. The average surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is now 90 degrees F and rising. That is only 10 degrees less than some hot tubs! And yet many people are astonished that storms have become so much more powerful, blaming it on gay people, childless cat ladies, or pet eating immigrants. The people of Tennessee are especially afflicted by stupidity at the highest levels as their governor pooh-poohed the flooding, describing it as “just weather.”

Average surface ocean temperatures have already increased by 2º C and it some case are as much as 5º C higher, meaning the air above can hold a third more moisture than it could when sea temperatures were cooler. That is the reason why Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina got clobbered by flooding after Helene struck a week ago. As McKibben says, western North Carolina is a lot like parts of Vermont. “Once the rain drops, it’s funneled very quickly down the saturated hillsides; placid streams become raging torrents that fill up those bottomlands, covering farm fields with soil; when the water starts to drain, everything is coated with mud. These towns are going to be cut off for a while — our mountain hamlet in Vermont was effectively isolated for a couple of weeks last summer. And these are places where cellphones don’t work in the best of times. Things get pre-modern very fast.”

But North Carolina is not the only place flooding is happening. “The same day that Helene slammed into the Gulf, Hurricane John crashed into the Mexican state of Guerrero, dropping nearly 40 inches of rain and causing deadly and devastating floods in many places including Acapulco, which is still a shambles from Hurricane Otis last year. In Nepal this afternoon at least 148 people are dead and many still missing in the Kathmandu Valley. Just this month, we’ve seen massive flooding in Turkey, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Marseilles, Milan, India, Wales, Guatemala, Morocco, Algeria, Vietnam, Croatia, Nigeria, Thailand, Greece, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Austria. It is hard to open social media without seeing cellphone videos from the cars-washing-down-steep-streets genre; everywhere the flows are muddy-brown, and swirling with power,” McKiibben writes. And still people insist that global heating is not a thing that we need to be concerned about.

Flooding Leads To Climate Migration

On October 2, 2024, the New York Times, in cooperation with ProPublica, published a story in which it warned that record heat and flooding are threatening to make the southern third of the United States uninhabitable. That in turn will lead to a different kind of flood — of climate refugees fleeing those areas in search of places where they can be sheltered from the worst ravages of a warming planet.

Researchers now estimate tens of millions of Americans may ultimately move away from extreme heat and drought, storms and wildfires. While many Americans are still moving into areas considered high risk, lured by air conditioning and sunny weather, the economic and physical vulnerabilities they face are becoming more apparent. One study by the First Street Foundation, a research firm that studies climate threats to housing, found that roughly 3.2 million Americans have already migrated, many over short distances, out of flood zones such as low lying parts of Staten Island, Miami, and Galveston, Texas.

Over the next 30 years, 7.5 million more are projected to leave those perennially flooded zones, according to the study. All of this suggests a possible boom for inland and Northern cities. But it also will leave behind large swaths of coastal and other vulnerable land where seniors and the poor are very likely to disproportionately remain, the New York Times suggests.

818,000 Census Areas At Risk From Flooding

The First Street report identified 818,000 US census blocks as having passed tipping points for abandonment — areas with a combined population of more than 16 million people. A related peer reviewed component of the organization’s research forecasts that soon, whole counties across Florida and Central Texas could begin to see their total populations decline, suggesting a sharp reversal of the persistent growth that Florida has maintained as climate pressures rise. As luck would have it, both Florida and Texas are under the thumb of tyrannical governors who refuse to acknowledge global warming out of some stupid belief that by ignoring the problem, it will somehow go away. Meanwhile, millions of their inhabitants are placed at risk by their idiotic policies.

Such projections could turn out to be wrong — the more geographically specific such modeling gets, the greater its margin of error, the New York Times report says. But the mere fact that climate research firms are now identifying American communities that people might have to retreat from is significant. Retreat has not until recently been a part of this country’s climate change vernacular.

13 Million Displaced Americans

Other research is putting a finer point on which Americans will be most affected. Early this year, Mathew Hauer, a demographer at Florida State University who has estimated that 13 million American will be displaced by rising sea levels, was among the authors of a study that broke out what this climate-driven migration could mean for the demographics of the United States, examining what it might look like by age. Hauer and his fellow researchers found that as some people migrate away from vulnerable regions, the population that remains grows significantly older. In coastal Florida and along other parts of the Gulf Coast, for example, the median age could increase by 10 years this century — far faster than it would without climate migration.

This aging means that older adults — particularly women, who tend to live longer — are very likely to face the greatest physical danger. In fact, there is notable overlap between the places that Hauer’s research suggests will age and the places that the First Street Foundation has identified as the zones people are abandoning.

The exodus of the young means these towns could enter a population death spiral. Older residents are also more likely to be retired, which means they will contribute less to their local tax base, which will erode funding for schools and infrastructure, and leave less money available to meet the costs of environmental change even as those costs rise. All of that is very likely to perpetuate further out-migration.

Older, Poorer Communities

The older these communities get, the more new challenges emerge. In many coastal areas, for example, one solution under consideration for rising seas is to raise the height of coastal homes. But Hauer said, “adding steps might not be the best adaptation in places with an elderly population.” In other places older residents will be less able and independent, relying ever more on emergency services. This week many of Helene’s victims have simply been cut off, revealing the dangerous gaps left by broken infrastructure, and a mistaken belief that many people can take care of themselves.

In the future authorities will have to adapt the ways they keep their services online, and the vehicles and boats they use, in order to keep flooded and dangerous places connected. Such implications are worrisome. But so is the larger warning inherent in Hauer’s findings — many of the effects of climate change on American life will be subtle and unexpected. The future demographics of this country might look entirely unfamiliar. It’s past time to give real thought to who might get left behind. In addition, the outflow of residents from Southern Tier states will have a dramatic impact on how political power is apportioned in the United States.

The Takeaway

The issue here is not climate change; the issue is people who refuse to acknowledge what it obviously going on right outside their door because of some belief that the fossil fuel industry must somehow be protected from any reckoning for its destruction of the environment. We once thought asbestos was a miracle substance and that Freon was a gift from heaven — until we learned the truth. Once our attitudes changed — thanks to science — those threats were largely eliminated. Pollution from fossil fuels — mostly carbon dioxide and methane — still are not recognized as the threats to our lifestyle they really are and many people would rather ignore the science than take intelligent steps to limit the harm from using them.

We are in the middle of a threat to civilization entirely of our own making. For those who smirk and say “it could never happen here,” tell that to the people of Asheville, North Carolina. Last week, they didn’t know the truth. This week they do. Hopefully others will learn from their painful experience and demand their government stop coddling the fossil fuel companies and begin to take rational steps to clean up the mess they made.

Aren’t you sick of those companies lying to us and getting away with it? Get angry, get out of your comfort zone, and vote. We can control our own destiny if we elect leaders who take global warming seriously. We have been warned, now it is time to act by electing leaders who are rational and competent. The nation you save could be your own.