Stress Of Recovering From Weather/Climate Disasters Compounded By Politics And Ideology

Recovery from weather and climate disasters like 
Hurricane Helene in western North Carolinas is being
made much more difficult and stressful due to
political preening and ideological rigidity. 

The good news from that mess of a time last week in Washington is $110 billion in disaster relief was ultimately include in a government funding bill that averted a government shutdown. 

For the many victims of recent weather and climate disasters, the stupid battle in Washington just added to the stress and exasperation of those just trying to get a semblance of their old lives back. 

Especially since there was wide, bipartisan Congressional support for the disaster relief, but the whole thing was unnecessarily hijacked by ideologues, narcissists, politicians and hangers who believed getting in front of TV cameras and on social media is more important than actually doing their jobs. 

The result was the disaster relief package went through, but caused a lot of unnecessary stress among those who are counting on the federal help. 

"This is ridiculous," North Carolina restaurateur Katie Button told the Washington Post, with considerable understatement. 

The disaster relief is needed in a whole bunch of American places, including here in Vermont, but perhaps especially in Hurricane Helene-trashed western North Carolina. 

People in these disaster zones did receive immediate relief right after the calamities, such as temporary housing or reimbursements for staying in hotels.

But what they really need now - be they in Hawaii, or Vermont, or Florida, or North Carolina - is help rebuilding roads, loans to keep businesses afloat, aid to farmers to recover from the destruction stuff like that. 

These are the types of aid that got held up in the government shutdown battle last week.  It's also the type of help Congress should have approved months ago. 

According to the Washington Post:

"...the problem isn't limited to any one state of catastrophe - those recovering from the past two years of floods and fires say a faster and more permanent solution is needed for victims of the next tragedy.

At a news conference at the U.S. Capitol this month, disaster survivors from across the country asked lawmakers to not just approve the current recovery bill, but to permanently authorize a pot of money that can go out right after a disaster."

Here's just one tiny example of what a small town has to do when it's hit be a weather/climate disaster and Congress and politicians posture instead of do their job. 

Another section of Interstate 40 in western North Carolina
recently collapsed due to damage from Hurricane 
Helene back in September. This is another delay to
storm recovery, demonstrating just how hard it can
be to recover from weather and climate calamities

An intense July flash flood in the tiny, mountainous town of Bolton, Vermont suffered immense road damage. Many of the roads are gravel, on steep hills, so they were especially susceptible to damage.

Bolton was still waiting for federal aid to pay for the road fixes, and those bills are due. So, voters there on December 17 passed a $3 million bond to pay for the contractors who repair the road. They couldn't wait any longer for the FEMA aid to come that would fund the road repairs. 

It's a 10 year bond, so this will fall at least to an extent on already stressed Bolton property taxpayers.   Eventually, FEMA will provide money for those repairs. We think. But we have no idea how long that will take. And will the incoming Trump administration screw that up somehow?  We hope not. 

Now magnify Bolton, Vermont's experience many times over when you go to North Carolina. 

At least in Vermont, despite have a Republican governor and a Democratically controlled legislature, the lawmakers more or less cooperated and did what they could in the wake of the series of destructive floods that started in July, 2023.

No such luck in North Carolina, where partisanship got in the way of flood relief.  Washington Post explains:

"When North Carolina lawmakers passed their latest recovery package for the Hurricane Helene - ravaged western part of their state this month, it didn't feel like relief to residents there, many hoping for small business grants or eviction bans.

"Most of the aid bills 132 pages focused on stripping powers from state offices that will soon be held by Democrats. 

Gov. Ray Cooper (D) proposed a $3.9 billion relief package, with $650 million for economic assistance including all business grants, and another $650 million to address housing needs. That would go along with more than $25 billion that Cooper requested from the federal government for Helene recovery efforts. 

.....but the Republican-controlled state legislature didn't follow that plan."

The Republicans did pass three relief bills. One provided $100 million for water and wastewater infrastructure repairs, $50 million for public school repairs, $50 million in small business loans, $25 million for mental health resources and $9 million for utility fixes.

Local leaders in western North Carolina have said they appreciate any kind of assistance, every little bit helps, but they are frustrated the Republican state package did not include more direct assistance to people struggling after the calamity. 

I do like the $25 million North Carolina is allocating for mental heath services in the disaster zone, but I think it should be more. 

The trauma of enduring a weather and climate disaster is tough on mental health. Investing in mental health services in the aftermath of such an event probably benefits the whole region or state. After all, the better people are able to get back on their feet, but physically and emotionally, the more everybody benefits. 

 In Vermont, the state's Agency of Human Services mental health division has the Starting Over Strong VT program to help people and communities recover from recent disasters. It covers the counties declared disaster areas from last year's flooding - Addison, Caledonia, Chittenden, Essex, Lamoille, Orleans and Washington counties.

It seems to have been a success, as state officials say it has helped 14,000 or so participants since it was launched shortly after devastating floods in the summer of 2023.  Since then, we have had more destructive, home and business-destroying floods.

This program was slated to end this past October, but state officials have decided to extend it through July, 2025.  I'm hoping we don't have any further Vermont calamities between now and then.

Of course, the way the federal government is handling things, and seems destined to essentially not handle things over the next few years, I'd probably advocate for the Starting Over Strong program to continue indefinitely. 

 

Tension Between Politicians And Meteorologists Boils Over Again, This Time In Maine

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, shown here repairing
a neighbor's driveway after July's floods,
seems to work well with the National 
Weather Service when coordinating storm
emergencies. responses. However,
politicians sometimes use the NWS as
scapegoats when an emergency response
doesn't go as well as hoped. 

 "It came without warning," is the usual phrase we often hear after a weather disaster. Be it a tornado, wind storm, or flood, somebody will blame a meteorologist for not telling them danger was coming.

It's true that sometimes meteorologists, who are only human practicing an inexact science, indeed get it wrong. But often, the perception is at odds with the facts.  

So it was in Maine last week. 

The flood we experienced here in Vermont on December 18-19 was bad enough. In New Hampshire and Maine, it was even worse than what we experienced in the Green Mountain State. This was likely the second worst flood in Maine history. Only a 1987 flood was worse.

Which brings us to a tiff between Maine Gov. Janet Mills and the National Weather Service.

As the Bangor Daily News reports:

"'The National Weather Service did not predict five or six inches of rain in any community in Maine,' said Governor Mills Wednesday, speaking at a press conference after touring flood damage in Kennebec County."

But au contraire!

The National Weather Service in Maine rebuffed the governor. The storm was "well-forecasted and communicated in advance, including the potential for rainfall totals of 4-6 inches with localized areas receiving higher amounts," says the NWS.

The NWS noted that it provided forecasts and briefings to local and state officials starting on December 15, more than two full days before the disaster struck. 

"In advance for the hazards that were likely to occur on Monday, December 18, NWS forecasters informed local and state officials in the days leading up to the storm through daily email briefing packages, direct phone  conversation and virtual city and statewide briefings."

The NWS continued in their statement:

"The first flood watch and high wind watch were issued on Saturday afternoon, two full days before the storm. The state of Maine hosts a coordination call Sunday afternoon with NWS forecast offices in Gray and Caribou briefing on the expected flood, wind and coastal flood impacts. Rain began on Sunday bight, and by Monday morning NWS offices had issue flood warnings."

As you can see, the National Weather Service keeps all their receipts. There are many good reasons for this: Those receipts can clear up misinformation regarding their forecasts. 

This really came in handy back in 2019, when then-president Trump said Hurricane Dorian was going to hit Alabama. A National Weather Service office in Alabama refuted Trump's claim. When they got annoying blowback (including through the infamous hurricane Sharpie map) from Trump and his MAGA minions, the National Weather Service was able to prove how their Dorian forecasts evolved. The NWS showed how and why they reassured Alabamans that the storm would be no threat to them. 

There's another important reason for all those NWS receipts after a severe weather event.  If their storm predictions turned out to be even a little inaccurate, the National Weather Service  can use its huge paper trails to figure out went wrong to improve future forecasts. And how to better communicate with local and state leaders, not to mention the public. 

The comments by Maine Gov. Janet Mills were not nearly as egregious as what Trump did there. Her criticism was pretty mild and fleeting. It didn't involve any direct interference in their operations. Politicians almost never go that far. Still,   politicians will sometimes blame the meteorologists and their messengers if they mishandle a weather emergency. 

Those politicians know screwing up a storm response can end their careers. Or enhance their careers, if they handle the emergency deftly. (To be fair to the Maine governor, the National Weather Service offices in Maine DID warn of strong winds, but those winds were slightly stronger than forecast).

Still, efforts by politicians to blame supposedly inaccurate weather forecasts are a tried and true way to go.

When flash flooding from former Hurricane Ida inundated New York City and took 13 lives of residents in the process, then-mayor Bill de Blasio said, 'Here's what we did not know, that we would have literally shocking and unprecedented rainfall," the mayor said after the storm.  "No one projected that coming."

Only they did. The National Weather Service and other local meteorologists spent the days and hours ahead of the Ida flash flood pulling their hair out telling the public that the flooding would be especially severe and scary. 

Here in Vermont, it seems like the state's political leaders have a good working relationship with the National Weather Service. 

Prior to the Hurricane Irene floods in 2011, then-governor Peter Shumlin activated the state's emergency management center. He repeated NWS warnings of impeding severe floods. 

Much more recently, just ahead of, during and after the state's devastating July floods, Gov. Phil Scott kept going out of the way urging Vermonters to take NWS weather forecasts and warnings seriously. 

The day before the floods July 10 floods hit, Scott used National Weather Service's (accurate!) forecasts to declare a state of emergency, deploy swift water rescue teams around the state and warn people to be on guard and to take NWS flood warnings seriously. 

The combination of the NWS flood forecasts, the Scott administration's reaction to those forecasts and media attention to all this likely saved lives. Two people died in the summer floods, which is obviously tragic. But a disaster of that magnitude "should have" created more fatalities. It didn't. The coordinated weather warnings between the NWS and Vermont leaders surely helped. 

The December floods were a bit more complicated. Rainfall was slightly more than the NWS predicted and snowmelt was slightly more intense than expected. So the flooding that emerged that Monday was worse, somewhat catching the Scott administration by surprise. 

But by late morning and early afternoon that day, Vermont emergency managers were on top of it. So was the National Weather Service office in South Burlington.

The bottom line is, the next time you hear politicians and even the public say the "storm came with no warning," check out the receipts from the National Weather Service. Sometimes they do botch a forecast, or don't issue a timely warning. But often, they're just a convenient scapegoat.  

Vermont Is No Climate Refuge. No Place Is. It's Up To Us To Adapt, Or Try To

A sign outside a Johnson, Vermont church after destructive
floods swept the town and much of the rest of the state
earlier this month. Adapting to climate change is
going to take the ethos seen in this sign. 

 I have to delve into something I touched on just after the worst of Vermont's flooding in July. 

In a July 14 post when I was explaining what caused the July 10-11 cataclysmic flood in the Green Mountain State in, I mentioned a 2021 study that said Vermont is one of the best places in the United States to shield oneself from the effects of climate change. 

That study by Pro Publica and the New York Times said the top four safest counties in the United States from climate change are the Vermont counties of Lamoille, Orange, Franklin and Essex. All of Vermont was regarded in the study as a pretty  protected from climate change. 

The United States' "safest" county, Lamoille, has been declared a federal disaster area no fewer than 12 times in the past decade. That includes two this year: The big July flood, of course, and a weird May freeze that ruined crops that grew too early because of an unseasonably warm early spring. 

As VTDigger points out, we end up on lots of lists as a great climate refuge.  We're far enough north so that extreme heat waves aren't as big a threat. There's no coastline to drown in a hurricane or  nor'easter storm surge. We aren't nearly as prone to forest fires at places out west or in Canada.  

This "safety" has prompted some people to move to Vermont to escape the ravages of climate change. However, as we've seen this summer, there's really no escape. 

A summer-like early spring led to the freeze that damaged so many crops in Vermont.  Like seemingly everywhere else, the weather seems to whiplash back and forth, from a developing drought in June to catastrophic floods in July. 

Algae blooms closed some lakefront beaches in Vermont. We didn't really have any wildfires to speak of, but boy, we've had a lot of smoke from those fires in Canada and the western United States.

"This summer has maybe burst the bubble a little bit in what probably was more of just a myth, of Vermont being in an idea climate refuge," Jared Ulmer, the climate and health program manager at the Vermont Department of Health told VTDigger.

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.

I think most of us knew, when those 2021 studies came out about Vermont being a climate refuge that there were some huge asterisks attached to those study conclusions. 

It's not that ProPublica and the New York Times were wrong. It's just that Vermont is not in a hermetically sealed utopia of steady climate, steady people and and steady safety. 

That's not to say we have to sit here and be victims every time a climate disaster rolls around. Like everybody else on the planet, Vermont has to adapt to a changing climate. It's wetter here now, at least most of the time. But droughts are also more likely to intervene. 

Winters are warmer, which mucks up our winter sports season. The weather around our iconic maple sugaring season is now all over the place. Weird late winter and early spring heat waves have hurt that industry. 

Summer is tourist season in Vermont. Among all the other problems our July floods caused this year, I'm sure the destruction discouraged some visitors from coming to the Green Mountain State. 

With each new climate-related calamity or mishap, we learn what to do next time.  Or try to. After Tropical Storm Irene's epic floods in 2011 Vermont rebuilt with, at least in some places, stronger bridges, bigger culverts and better drainage.

We also moved some people away from flood prone areas after Irene. But not enough people, apparently 

I think many of us think of climate change in making our life and property decisions.  A few years ago, we replaced a culvert under our driveway, making it much larger than the previous ones and reinforcing it with large rocks. 

That surely saved our driveway from this summer's floods, but still, we weren't unscathed. The water was so powerful that it moved some the rocks away.  That could make the culvert prone to damage in the next torrent.  It doesn't end, does it?

As with Gov. Peter Shumlin after Irene, our current Gov. Phil Scott is solidly leading Vermont out of the latest flood crisis, and his team is surely figuring out how to, as they say, build back better. 

There's only so much we can do, of course. Like it or not, Vermont, just like every other place on the planet, will keep facing newer and weirder climate challenges. 

Vermont is just one tiny dot on the map. All over the world, governments, individuals, organizations, corporations and businesses are now constantly calculating climate change into their plans. Even if some of these entities won't admit they're doing it. 

This state of affairs all snuck up without us fully realizing it, despite decades of hair on fire warnings from thousands of climate scientists. 

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying we're doomed, like the story I hear from some climate activists. It would be easier to reduce carbon emissions so we don't make bad situation worse. But so far, the fossil fuel industry and some greedy politicians are making sure that doesn't happen just yet. 

I just hope that with everything else going on in the world, sane heads prevail as we all react and batten down in the face of climate change. 

Frankly, I'm not that optimistic about many of our national and world leaders, or some corporations for that matter. But, as I've seen here in Vermont after this summer's floods, we're acting as individuals and small communities to recover from, and brace for the effects to climate change. 

That's probably the best path worldwide.  As best we can, we act locally, and hope the bigwigs catch up with us, eventually.