"A huge volume of rain overwhelmed the region’s infrastructure, showing the lethal impact of climate change."
"Three days after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana, its weakened remnants tore into the Northeast and claimed at least 43 lives across New York, New Jersey and two other states in an onslaught that ended Thursday and served as an ominous sign of climate change’s capacity to wreak new kinds of havoc.
The last storm this deadly in the region, Sandy in 2012, did its damage mostly through tidal surges. But most of this storm’s toll — both in human life and property damage — reflected the extent to which the sheer volume of rain simply overwhelmed the infrastructure of a region built for a different meteorological era.
Officials warned that the unthinkable was quickly becoming the norm.
“There are no more cataclysmic ‘unforeseeable’ events,” Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said Thursday morning. “We need to foresee these in advance and be prepared.” "
Andy Newman reports for the New York Times September 2, 2021.
SEE ALSO:
"Ida's Record Rain Floods New York-Area Homes, Subways; At Least 44 Dead" (Reuters)
"How the Storm Turned Basement Apartments Into Death Traps" (New York Times)
"New Yorkers Got Record Rain, and a Warning: Storms Are Packing More Punch" (New York Times)
"Why Was Ida So Devastating As It Flooded The Northeast?" (AP)
"Overlapping Disasters Expose Harsh Climate Reality: The U.S. Is Not Ready" (New York Times)
