Hawaii's potential flooding reflects how climate change impacts disadvantaged most

View of Makaha Valley on the Waianae Coast from Makaha Valley Towers

The Waianae Coast offers some of the most authentic of the
culture in Hawaii, as well as some of its most beautiful scenery and pristine beaches.  It was once the haven of Hawaii's royalty.  But in modern times it now is home for many of the poor of the islands, who face the impact of climate change most, just as in other areas of the world.

New Orleans levee failures and the nation’s floods

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Carol Forsloff - Nearly six years ago a terrible storm hit the City of New Orleans, flooding major areas and destroying lives and property while displacing and injuring thousands, in a story of a failed infrastructure the type of which occurs nationwide.

Half the United States is protected by levee systems. A North Dakota town is now nearly submerged because of its lack of protection from flooding rivers. .  The same has been true of great floods in the interior of the country.  Levees decades ago were built for a different world, based on facts known at the time.  But like science and medicine, environmental information changes, requiring adjustment to decisions.

The town of Minot, North Dakota is nearly under water, barely missing being completely drowned in waters that have risked the town over many days.   Folks rushed to prevent the flooding by building levees, but lacked the time and resources to protect the town in time The value of good levees, and good maintenance,  is a reminder in what happened to this town.  Failure to protect by advance planning in many ways is reminiscent of what has occurred to other towns and places since Hurricane Katrina banged up New Orleans in a fashion people still feel.

The New Orleans levee system was built to protect the town from Category 3 storm, but the system did not protect the town, as it failed to meet that level determined years ago, as pointed out by the Washington Post and other media after some time had passed.  Recorded levels for Hurricane Katrina at different points around the town put the Category at Level 2, while others were at 3.  Suffice to say, all arguments about those differences aside, the engineering failures and lack of oversight created a system that could not protect the City of New Orleans from the blows of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Not long after folks questioned why New Orleans residents continued to complain, to organize, petition and ask the nation for remembrance.  While on the surface it might have appeared to be irrational protest, the fact is the levee systems of the United States have failed citizens around the United States, as the nation’s infrastructure has been given short shrift in Congress.

As the nation is forced to make choices, both at the local and national level, the weather conditions, unpredictable  as they are, need to be acknowledged in future planning, according to environmental experts.  We have to adjust our wants and needs to conform to the snowball effect that takes place as a result of disasters.  For New Orleans, it means a town still staggering in some quarters, listed as one of the dirtiest towns in America, with abandoned buildings and poorly constructed repairs.  It has meant families missing members essential to their core, displaced persons trying to find their niche in some new place, businesses uprooted in ways that cannot be replaced, and political strife that continues to plague the state.

In short what happens as a consequence of disasters has everything to do with what happens to the economy, as the Risk Institute points out in its examination of Galveston, Texas after Hurricane Iniki.

The cost of environmental disasters is passed along from one segment of the economy to the other, in that snowballing style that hits the social order and weakens it, especially where it is most vulnerable.  Those who lived in the most exposed disaster locations are the rural poor, the city’s struggling middle class and indigent as well, the elderly, the children, persons with serious medical conditions and the marginalized among us.    But these disasters change the economy of the areas where they occur, taking jobs and livelihoods upon which folks depend and for the nation to recover from its economic uncertainties.

While the Congress debates what needs to be done and the politicians prate, knowing the essential needs of the country, especially its infrastructure and how it impacts all of us, is essential in what happens.  New Orleans is central in that process, setting as it did a modern precedent for the nation’s failures to maintain a system of protection for the town, the type of which is failing everywhere, and drowning other people in its wake.  By keeping New Orleans in our memories, by consistent reminders through symbols and discussion, we keep the message that protection systems are paramount to economic recovery and to the progress of the United States.

Portland, Oregon's no spring season of discontent

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Carol Forsloff - Portland, Oregon, wet and still wintry with rivers at flood stage, joins other cities in a season of discontent. Weather reporters speak of disasters in other places, but Portland is moaning also from the weight of too much water.

While the wild weather has created wide havoc around the country, few commentators speak about the West Coast, specifically Oregon, except to mention the temperature, along with other regions on the U.S. map, but there are aberrations in Portland weather that speak to the climate’s topsy turvy ways as well.

Portland is known as a place where hats and umbrellas are a must for most days, but as June approaches the wet weather won’t let up, except for an occasional peek from sun, mostly with one eye half open, before the rain comes again and folks have little chance to get out from under the eaves, the hats and the umbrellas for a walk down the street, let alone a walk in the park.

Roses aren’t coming up either, as the bushes of beauty have been delayed by prolonged cold, wet and very rainy weather. Temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s don’t promote the pretty flowers that bloom in spring, especially Portland’s fairest, the roses that have made the city a special place because of them.

Rose Festival week begins with the fair along the river, with the faithful folk used to the constant drizzles by now out to have fun in spite of gray days, proving once again that native Oregonians have well earned their title as ducks.

The rivers have risen so the mighty Columbia and Willamette junctures have created delays in traffic flow across the main bridges, as they are raised again and again to allow the boats to get out from under, as some are too close to the bridge tops for safety on the rivers where sandbagging has prevented overflow into residential areas. On the other hand, there has already been flooding in low-lying areas.

Portland welcomes rain to keep its evergreens ever green and to continue to wear with pride its very green status for the look and feel of nature, but the rainfall has become a topic everyone talks about in a city that never has had to talk about it as much before. So count Portland, Oregon in with all the other areas of the United States, that have either too much water, as in rain for Portland and river flooding, or not enough as in the Southwest where fires have taken over for want of rain at all.

Portland will celebrate its Rose Festival days ahead, bravely and optimistically, while wishing all the while for the sun to be out long enough to sit and have time to smell the roses—wherever they might be, as they are too few in number for the crowds who love them so.

Delta, Central Mississippi disaster potential from its history

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Carol Forsloff - People worry now in the South and Central areas of the country for good reason.  They have faced disasters before, great floods in the 1920's and 1930's and the earthquake that impacted much of the Central US in 1811 - 1812, the type experts say could happen again this year.

This year the government has decided to use planned levee removals in certain areas of the South and Central areas to relieve the potential of more disastrous flooding in major population areas.  But the promises made today are not unlike those made in the past, when people were told the levees would hold, and they didn't.

Earthquake issues may be the focus of the Pacific Northwest, but experts tell us that a deep fault under the earth, with a much greater and wider potential for damage, lies in the Central Mississippi region, a place hard hit in the winter of 1811 - 1812.  It was then the mighty Mississippi literally swamped whole areas of the region, across farmlands and small towns, as three earthquakes of the time, estimated 7.5 - 8.0 brought fear and destruction.  This too is a fear to bring government focus about the need for protecting populations, especially in the areas surrounding major cities.

Memphis and New Orleans have felt the floods from these periods of history.  They are the places of a romantic past, unique in music and culture, and major attractions in the South.  They represent the great plantations, the sweeping history, the images of people singing, swimming joyously along the riverbanks.  But this year the river's tributaries aren't look upon with welcome, as the flooding threatens farmlands once again.

TV stations in Memphis and other areas tell us residents fear the same type of flooding that occurred in 1927 could happen again.  Many residents have evacuated; others are poised to leave.  The Mayor of Memphis, John Holden, has warned residents in those areas anticipated to be most impacted.  Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi, has also ordered evacuations in low-lying areas, while Bobby Jindal has voiced an alert for 19 parishes in Louisiana, most especially Vidalia, a place that could be hard hit from floodwaters.

Memphis saw the Mississippi reach 43.8 feet on Tuesday, poised to reach 48 feet on May 1, just below the record set in 1937 at 48.7 feet.  In Louisiana it is expected the waters may top the levee walls with heights over 50 feet.  Already hundreds of people have taken to shelters.

The regions called the Central Mississippi area has seen the pain of floods before, and this year it has reeled from tornadoes.  An earthquake potential concerns government authorities and has created predictions from faith groups that it will come this year and create the kind of havoc that could be part of an Armageddon scenario, with people fighting each other and the demonic wrath of Satan there to help.  Some scientists say there is no certainty an earthquake will occur this year or even in the very near future, although the potential is there, given the number of quakes in the area.

The New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) is the most active seismic area in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains and is located in southeastern Missouri, northeastern Arkansas, western Tennessee, western Kentucky and southern Illinois. Some believe the 3.8 earthquake in Arkansas in February of this year is a harbinger of what is yet to come.  FEMA is setting up a disaster preparation drill for this month.

In the meantime, the South is preparing for the worst from flooding, as the areas considered to be among the most beautiful treasures in American history, in Memphis and New Orleans,  folks hope won't face Mother's Nature's wrath as happened many times in a place where people fear it may occur again.  In the Mississippi Alluvia Plain scientists tell us habitat, already under threat, can be seriously hurt by events that upset its delicate ecosystem, as has already occurred from oil spills and the topographical nature of the area itself.

The people fear a repeat of the floods of 1927.

Authorities see problems happening in greater magnitude now and in the future, as a result of climate change.