As floodwaters peak and recede over the coming weeks, there will be lots of standing water for disease-transmitting mosquitoes to breed and multiply, the Atlantic reports.
West Nile virus has plagued Texans since 2002, and there were 22 cases of Zika in the state in 2017. Those numbers could increase sharply if mosquito populations spike. In New Orleans, West Nile cases doubled the year after Hurricane Katrina flooded much of the city. (Oh, and mosquito populations are already on the rise thanks to climate change.)
There are other dire health effects from the storm. Floodwater often carries untreated sewage, gasoline, and debris, all of which can cause injury and illness when people come into contact with it. Even after water recedes, tainted carpet and drywall can harbor mold and mildew, another serious health threat.
And, in an unfortunate twist, unmonitored emissions and chemical leaks among the refineries and plants in Houston’s extensive industrial district on Monday caused officials to issue a shelter-in-place warning for residents downwind of a breached pipeline.
All of this will take a greater toll on Houston residents sidelined into vulnerable neighborhoods — mostly communities of color who were already suffering before Harvey made headlines. For them, the storm is far, far from over.
On Katrina’s 12th anniversary, Harvey pours down on New Orleans.
The city shut down under a flash food watch on Tuesday as the storm’s outer bands drench the streets.
A six-hour drive away in Houston, rescuers are swooping in on boats and helicopters to pull thousands of stranded people to safety. It’s all frighteningly evocative of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29 of that year, plunging 80 percent of the Crescent City underwater for weeks and leaving 1,500 people dead.
Forecasts call for Harvey to douse New Orleans with 4-8 inches of rain over the next few days. Though that’s notably less than the 49 inches Harvey has already dropped on the hardest-hit areas in Texas — making it the most extreme rain event in U.S. history — any major rain is bad news for New Orleans. Most of the city is below sea level, and its drainage pumping system is still “broken.”
In early August, a deluge hit the city and revealed that 17 of its 120 pumps weren’t working. Those pumps are spread across the city to suck water from storm drains and canals and deliver it into nearby bodies of water. The city has been working to fix problem, but the drainage system’s overall capacity remains “diminished.”
As Harvey devastates Texas, catastrophic floods unfold in South Asia.
Monsoon rains have caused floods and landslides affecting 41 million people in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, resulting in the death of more than 1,200 people.
Frequent floods in South Asia are common in the monsoon season between June and September. But this is “one of the most serious humanitarian crises” the region has seen in many years, according to Martin Faller, deputy regional director for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Aid organizations are prioritizing food and shelter for stranded victims.
While the crisis has been going on since mid-August, the downpours have most recently come for Mumbai. Since Saturday, the city’s roads have flooded, schools have closed early, and flights have been canceled. India’s meteorological department warns that the heavy rains will likely continue in Mumbai until Aug. 31.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked residents to stay safe.
Urge the people of Mumbai and surrounding areas to stay safe & take all essential precautions in the wake of the heavy rain.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 29, 2017
People keep building in flood-prone places like Houston.
And all that unchecked development makes flooding worse. It’s worth looking back at an in-depth piece published last year by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune, which made a compelling case that, by turning Houston’s permeable prairie into houses, people have transformed a sponge into a bathtub. It has also put more people in harm’s way.
“More people die here than anywhere else from floods,” Sam Brody, a Texas A&M University at Galveston researcher, said at the time. “More property per capita is lost here. And the problem’s getting worse.”
Of course, it’s not just Houston. We’re doing the same thing along the Atlantic seaboard — rebuilding rather than retreating after Hurricane Sandy. Without regulations in place to force people to plan for floods (or wildfires or hurricanes) they often don’t. And President Trump is trying to make it easier to build without considering rising sea levels.
Eventually we’ll learn from this, right? Right? It’s hard to say “yes” with any confidence. This is the worst flood Houston has seen, but it’s hardly the first. There were also floods in 2016, and 2015, and 2009, and 2008, and 2006 …
We’re making predictable disasters worse. We’ll need to do just the opposite if we are to adapt to climate change.
Meet the new faces of climate change: vegetarian bears.
A new study shows that grizzlies on Alaska’s Kodiak Island have been ditching their salmon-eating ways in favor of berries.
Usually, grizzlies eat salmon early in the summer, and berries when the season’s winding down. But the study’s authors have found that warming temperatures caused by climate change cause the island’s berries to ripen at the same time as the salmon run.
Too many options! When forced to choose between the two, most bears choose berries because they lead to faster, necessary weight gain. And lo: veggie bears.
While we usually praise vegetarianism as an environment-saving practice for humans, it’s not the same for bears. This new ursine diet affects the island’s ecosystem, of course. Our messy grizzly friends usually eat up to 75 percent of the salmon rushing through Kodiak streams and drop salmon carcasses to the ground once they’ve polished them off, which enriches the soil. But that’s no longer happening.
If the patterns persist, simultaneous berry-and-salmon seasons will be regular occurrences by 2070.
Harvey dealt Houston catastrophic flooding, and it’s not over yet.
There are rooftop helicopter rescues, countless cars swept away, and scenes of unfathomable devastation. The city advised people climbing into their attics for safety to make their way onto the roof instead, preferably with a white bedsheet so they can be more easily found.
During the peak of the flooding on Saturday night, the National Weather Service in Houston issued an apocalyptically worded “Flash Flood Emergency for Life-Threatening Catastrophic Flooding.” That kind of warning wasn’t a thing before Harvey, which just adds emphasis to the unique risk this storm poses.
The event is so rare that even the NWS is unsure of what will happen next. In a chilling follow-up tweet on Sunday, the NWS said “this event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced.”
The tweet includes a forecast map of nearly two feet of additional rainfall expected for Houston before Harvey clears out — doubling the totals that the city received overnight. That would bring the storm total to around 50 inches in the hardest hit areas, more than double Houston’s all-time heaviest rainfall record. Precipitation levels would be close to the theoretical maximum for any hurricane-related rainfall event anywhere in the United States.
If you have family or friends in the Houston area, urge them to do whatever it takes to stay safe. This is going to get worse before it gets better.
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