COLUMN: Viewpoint – Hurricanes and global warming

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/10/2024 (370 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Good friends who were once teaching colleagues of ours, live in Asheville North Carolina. Their city has been devasted by flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.  Thankfully our friends’ home was not damaged too extensively, but photos they posted on social media show the roads leading to their property are under water and blocked by fallen trees tangled in wires.  They have been without power or running water for more than a week and don’t know when it will be restored.

Our friends are teachers and the school where they work experienced severe water damage. Like other schools in Asheville theirs is closed indefinitely.

Sadly, many people in Asheville did not have flood insurance. The area was not considered at a high risk for floods.  When they purchased their insurance plans most businesses and homeowners didn’t think the extra expense for coverage in case of flooding was worth it.  Our friends say at the school where they teach the insurance will not come close to paying for the repairs to the damage caused by the hurricane and subsequent flooding.

An article in The Atlantic explains that North Carolina had already received a record amount of rain before the hurricane. Hotter than usual summer temperatures saturated the air with moisture. So when Hurricane Helene brought even more rain the river which runs through Asheville and its subsidiaries overflowed. That sent water rushing forcefully through the city, crumpling highways and causing mudslides. It all happened so quickly there was little time to prepare.

We visited our friends in Asheville a few years ago. We so enjoyed all the art, culture and beauty of the colorful and friendly city. I took photos of Asheville’s downtown sidewalks because they have angels engraved into them every few meters. This is a tribute to author Thomas Wolfe who wrote his famous book Look Homeward Angel about growing up in Asheville. According to our friends many ‘angels’ are stepping in now to help the people of Asheville recover from the storm.

The National Hurricane Center says human-caused climate change is at least 50 percent to blame for what happened in Asheville because oceans have become so warm hurricanes can suck up much more moisture from them. Climate change also allows storms to retain their strength further inland which means even though Asheville is more than three hundred miles from the ocean the rain from the hurricane devasted the community.

Interestingly the two political candidates running to be President of the United States have very different opinions about what happened in Asheville.  Donald Trump says the disaster has nothing to do with climate change. The day after he visited the hurricane ravaged state of North Carolina he said the climate crisis is a hoax and the greatest scam of all time.

Kamala Harris his opponent on the other hand, said during her tour of North Carolina that Hurricane Helene once again proves climate change is an existential threat that needs to be addressed.

North Carolina is considered a battleground state in the coming American election.  Trump and Harris are basically tied in the polls. It will be interesting to see whether their vastly different beliefs about the hurricane’s connection to climate change will have an impact on people’s voting.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada is warning our political leaders that climate change has made 2024 the costliest year ever for claims due to weather phenomena- wildfires and hailstorms in Alberta and flooding in Ontario and Quebec.  It will be interesting to see whether the varied responses to climate change by our Canadian political parties will have any influence on the next election here.