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By: Mikaela Owen Summary. Hurricane Ida has been named the 7th most costly hurricane in the US since 2000, and it is living up to that billion dollar number. The tremendous amounts of water caused incredible damage to people's homes, schools, and public places alike creating a mass amount of unsalvageable waste. Just days after the hurricane hit Louisiana, the rains continued across the East at a record rate of 3 inches in New York in just an hour. When a surplus of water is coming down in areas not acclimated for this type of weather, it overflows the small rivers and streams causing detrimental flooding damage and flash floods. In fact, one of the largest causes of death from Hurricane Ida was due to cars becoming swept away or stranded in overflooded roads. Another high death toll was due to basement apartments in the city flooding with water at such an alarming rate; the residents did not have time to escape. While states like Louisiana can plan for storms like Ida due to their history of tropical hurricanes, Ida has brought a new threshold of danger we were not expecting. While the levees did their job for the most part, many are still left without power and may be for another month. Indeed, as of September 13th, roughly 100,000 people in Louisiana remain without power. Unfortunately, as we can expect, higher impact storms like Ida are largely due to the ongoing climate crisis. Now more than ever do we need to take action in improving our infrastructure and stepping up to find solutions to reduce our climate impact. If we do not take certain measures now, storms like Ida can become more frequent, and the damage can be much more severe. Why we should care? This topic is something we all should care about as hurricanes have large impacts on all different aspects. Everything is connected, and tropical storms may only get worse if we don't change our ways.  Photo Credit: https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/wc_JadZTmR9stPK1bQuZZYkoUM4=/2500x1675/smart/filters:format(webp):quality(75)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/58dc588d59ea9f1bac7a8102b6747975/Hurricane%20Ida%20Louisiana%20REUTERS%20TT.jpg Example Article. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/09/02/nyregion/nyc-storm This article provides a detailed outline on multiple effects of the flooding caused by Hurricane Ida. One being how overcrowded cities like New York and illegal housing are a continuous issue poverty stricken citizens face. I cannot fathom being in a hurricane-like situation and waking up to the cries of my neighbors who I cannot help, or potentially living in a dangerous apartment like theirs. I also think this article does a good job at showing multiple government leaders recognizing climate change and it's impacts that we face today. With the governors of New York and New Jersey and President Biden making comments on how extreme storms like this could become a new normal given the effects of climate change, I hope it's a wake up call to those in that area and anywhere for that matter to start making changes for the better. An interesting effect of Ida that the article also brings to light is the tornadoes that hit in Maryland and New Jersey. Landing quickly and leaving much damage, these too provided mass devastation to citizens in those states along with flooded streets and homes. Science in Action.
Dr. Owen Kelley is a Hurricane Research Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Owen Kelley is fluent in multiple of NASA's software programs and uses his skills to conduct research on tropical cyclones and their functioning systems. By using different technologies such as Global Precipitation Measurement or (GPM), Kelley uses NASA's data to show precipitation impacts on various areas as well as lightening detection, steering currents, and infrared observations of storms. This data helps citizens and scientists to get a better picture of the impact tropical storms have on certain areas, and how we can better prepare for future storms. In correlation to Hurricane Ida, data like this can show how much precipitation happened and where, and what areas of the southeast coast were hit with the most impact.
9 Comments
Kamaya Hayes
9/28/2021 11:46:36
It’s very sad that this has happened and people are losing their lives over something we possibly can control. Finding ways to decrease climate change in critical in situations like these. Also improving our infrastructure is a very necessary thing for when stuff like this happens people can at least stay safe and not have to worrying about losing their homes or going without power for days.
Amanda Turner
9/29/2021 18:29:03
It is very sad to know that people are losing their lives and property over a storm. I had no idea that climate change could affect the severity of storms, and people are still experiencing the repercussions of Hurricane Ida. We need to protect others and we need to focus on improving the condition of our planet so that more people don't lose their lives.
Alexandria Simpkins
9/30/2021 10:52:10
The fact that so much damage could be lessened by structural changes to our cities. It’s also very interesting to think about how we’re over flooding on one side of the country and drying out on the other to the point where our certain aquifers are disappearing. Hopefully we can create, essentially something similar to a giant sump-pump system to move the water flooding the south east to water the west coast. 9/30/2021 11:33:03
This is yet another scary and sad reminder of the hurricanes that can become more frequent if we don't step up our climate change game. I feel lucky to live in an area without tropical storms, I can't imagine the nightmare Ida was. It's upsetting that people still had their power out for weeks after as well and unnerving how tornadoes formed afterwards. This goes to show the many consequences a hurricane can leave, aside from just the physical storm damage.
Collin Houston
10/4/2021 13:05:54
It’s sad to see that more and more people are losing their lives and their belongings due to more frequent and more powerful hurricanes due to climate change. It is shocking to me that some people are still without power when the hurricane made landfall almost a month ago. This is upsetting that humans' effect on the environment has led to so many deaths, and people losing everything. I hope we are able to better prepare for future storms by stopping climate change and building more structures that can resist high winds and flooding.
Grace
10/4/2021 14:02:05
It is devastating to see that so many people lost everything because of Hurricane Ida, the people of Louisiana went through two quick random tornados touching down and causing damage but then those tornados were also followed up by the outrageous amount of flooding. It was heartbreaking to hear that most people were sleeping or couldn't get out of their house so they died because of how fast the flooding and storm occurred.
Matthew Vassilakos
10/4/2021 22:41:33
I think it is remarkable how the storm in Louisiana will come all the way north to New York and create catastrophic damage for them all the way up the east coast. I also did not think about the inequality of impact, disproportionately affecting those of lower economic standing. We need to plan for this in coastal areas worldwide as stated in this news piece along with others from this week, these natural disasters are becoming more and more common and stronger and stronger. I do not foresee this trend turning around any time in the near future.
Sullivan Stack
10/4/2021 23:32:19
As you may know, the city of New Orleans is particularly interesting when it comes to observing the environmental impacts that humans have made on the world. While we have constructed levees and brought massive amounts of material into the city to keep it from going underwater, the fact remains that we are ultimately only battling our own actions. As your article shows, this issue (and accompanying monetary commitment) will only continue to worsen as the climate continues to change.
riley st.ledger
10/4/2021 23:46:24
It is terrible to hear about the effects of this storm and how damaging it really was. It is crazy that 100,000 people are without power, and don't know if it will come back any time soon. It's also scary to think and see how storms will continue to get worse due to the climate crisis, which puts into perspective how many aspects of life really are affected by our actions. Leave a Reply. |
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