A Chapel Hill home ravaged by flooding by Tropical Storm Chantal in Camelot Village. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)
Less than a month after I moved to Durham for graduate school, Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina. Helene, the deadliest storm to ever hit the state, took 108 lives and caused an estimated $48.8 billion in damage. Less than a year later, Tropical Storm Chantal killed six North Carolinians and did more than $56 million in damage to Orange County. This is just one of the 13 counties for which Governor Stein declared a state of emergency. The physical and emotional trauma being felt during this time reminds me of watching my hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana struggle to overcome tragic extreme weather events.
As a Gulf Coast native, I’ve felt the presence of natural disasters my entire life. When I was three, I evacuated New Orleans with my mother and younger sister ahead of Hurricane Katrina. When the levees broke, my dad watched the water rise up, filling our street and submerging our front lawn, creeping up the steps to the top lip of our front porch. We were lucky the water began to drain before it could make it into the house.
As I grew older, I felt Katrina’s legacy in New Orleans. Many people were not as fortunate as my family – some lost their homes and others their lives. Some who made it out during evacuations or in the storm’s aftermath never returned to New Orleans. I worry for my family that still lives there.
Throughout my childhood and adolescence, we experienced other large storms. None were as seriously damaging as Katrina, but it was common to wake up to felled tree branches and flooded streets. In 2021, Category 4 Hurricane Ida whipped through New Orleans, leaving the city without power for over three weeks at the hottest time of the year. Unfortunately, such extreme weather experiences were not limited to my time in New Orleans.
The morning after Chantal hit Durham, my coworkers and I watched live news reports of the 130 casualties caused by flash flooding in Texas. Twenty-seven young girls were killed by the floods while attending a sleepaway camp similar to the one I attended for seven summers.
While watching these reports in shock and horror, I listened to people calling the disaster an unavoidable “act of God.” Of course, we should dedicate thoughts and prayers to the families suffering during this tragedy, but the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather is not random. It is directly attributable to human-induced climate change. To prevent future tragedies, we need accurate forecasts and warnings, timely federal relief programs, more resilient infrastructure, and climate action plans.
It is mystifying to me that the president claimed that he is investing in technology to protect people from extreme weather events on the same weekend he slashed support for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and renewable energy. We need to be proactive, not reactive, and that means investing in climate adaptation.
Devastating extreme weather events are our new reality, no matter what state you live in. If it’s not a hurricane, it’ll be a tornado like the one that hit St. Louis in May of this year. Or wildfires like those that burned through Los Angeles in January. Or an extreme heat wave like the heat dome that is triggering heat alerts from Nebraska to Florida this past week.
As someone just starting to establish a career and life as a young professional, I fear the upcoming years during which extreme weather will become an even more powerful and disastrous force. Flooding from Chantal in Durham wiped out an entire suspension bridge in the Eno River State Park, where I frequently hike and recreate with friends. This is reality for my lifetime, and I want to do something about it.
We need to get serious about climate action. Without concerted environmental efforts, communities will continue to suffer, and people will needlessly die. We need to make our voices heard.
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