This story originally appeared on GRIST and is part of the Climate office Collaboration.
The country watched with horror torrential rains soaked in Texas earlier this month, sweeping At least 135 people to death. Kerr’s county alone lost 107, including more than two dozen children at the Mystic Camp.
From a distance, it would be easy, possible, to think that blurms like these covers are happy. That the disaster is distant.
This is not the case.
As the details of the tragedy are concentrated, the list of contributory factors has increased. Sudden showers, driven by climate change. The absence of a full warning system to inform people that the Guadalupe river increased quickly. Building crawling in areas known for flooding, coupled with information on places on risky places.
These are the same elements that could trigger a County Kerr County disaster in each state of the country. It is a reality that has played the number of times Almedy in recent years, with floods Vermont,, Kentucky,, North Carolina And elsewhere, leaving sorrow and billions of dollars in destruction in its wake.
“Example of Kerr County Isreme of what is happening everywhere,” said Robert Freudenberg, vice-president of the energy and environmental program of the regional plan region. “People are at risk because of this, and there is more than we have to do.”
The most obvious problem is that we continue to build in areas subject to floods. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, produces ribacé available cards showing high -risk places. However, according to the latest data from the non -profit climate research company Foundation First Street7.9 million houses and other structures are found in a risk area of special FEMA flood, which has appointed the place with 1% or Greter chances of being flooded during a given year.
TOP 10 of the FEMA flood zone
Source: First Street Foundation
In Louisiana, 23% of the national head properties are located in an area of Floque Fema. In Florida, it’s around 17%. Arkansas, New Mexico and Nebraska are perhaps the less anticipated members of the Top 10, just like New Jersey, who, with New York, saw a torrential rain And floods that killed two people earlier this month.
Texas ranks seventh in the country, with around 800,000 properties, or about 6.5% of the state total, being in the flood zone. Kerr County officials Have a limited authority To prevent people from building in these areas, but even when governments have the skills necessary to prevent risky construction projects, they have historically haver. Although a study has found That certain areas finally start to slow down the development of flood plainsPeople continue to build in perilous places.
“There is an innate draw in the water we have, but we must know where the limits are,” said Freudenberg. “In dangerous places of reality, we have to work to remove people from the danger.”
Kerr County is in a region known as the South Flood Alley, and At least four cabins At the Mystic Camp, was sitting in an extremely dangerous “flooding path”. Many others stood on the path of a 100 -year flood. When the Christian summer camp for girls underwent an expansion in 2019, the The owners have built even more cabins On the water path.
