Why Hurricane Debby is a sign of things to come
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In October of 2015, Charleston residents experienced historic flooding as the city received nearly 25 inches of rain in two days, leaving thousands (including me) without power or isolated by deep flood waters. Meteorologists called it a “1,000-year rain event.”
This week, just nine years after that storm, the city is bracing for even more heavy rains, thanks to Hurricane Debby, which hit Florida as a Category 1 on Monday and is expected to reach South Carolina as a tropical storm. a week.
There is a slight difference between these two events. The 2015 storms were not tied to tropical events. The expected rainfall this week, which could see more than 30 inches of rain hit parts of the city, is associated with Tropical Storm Debby. However, both emphasize the impact of rising ocean temperatures.
On the Saffir-Simpson scale, Debby is not a formidable storm. Most Charlestonians would just take it out and not give it a second thought if they were following the normal route. Tropical storms are, in fact, an unpleasant part of living on the Southeast coast. But forecasters say Debby will stall by the time it reaches the Georgia/South Carolina border, leading to heavy rain.
The worst hurricane season on record came in 2005—the year Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. That year there were 28 hurricanes and seven major hurricanes. This year, forecasters warn that the tropical waters of the Atlantic are warmer than ever. By May, they were approaching temperatures typically found in August. That rise in temperatures is caused by greenhouse gases warming the planet, scientists say.
Charleston was not alone in the heavy rain. Houston, in May, experienced up to 23 inches of rain in some parts of the city. Hundreds of people had to be rescued from the floods, and at least one death was reported: a five-year-old boy who was caught in a car that was swept away by the water.
Forecasters had warned that the worst weather the US experienced last summer was not a one-off weather event. A report from John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State Meteorologist at Texas A&M University, predicted more extreme events this year for that state, including heavy rain, noting that clouds produce about 4% more rain for every degree -Fahrenheit average temperature rises. That can change the climate and increase the number of dangerous storms.
For residents of the low country of South Carolina, the cause is less of a concern right now than what will happen in the next few days. The Charleston branch of the National Weather Service says the city has received 2.29 inches of rain as of 2 pm ET Monday, breaking the record. And the heart of the storm is not expected to hit the city for several days. Rain threat levels are expected to increase—to a level labeled “high impact”—later this evening and remain in the country until Thursday (when they drop to a “high impact” rating).
Forecasters say the flooding could be “catastrophic,” and the National Hurricane Center is warning “this is a life-threatening situation.”
Remembering the last flood
While Charleston has had a storm or three since the rains of 2015, the flooding the city has experienced has been nowhere near that level. One meteorologist, in 2015, did the math and estimated that South Carolina saw 4.4 trillion gallons of water fall from the sky during the storm.
The flood has come though. Charleston is hit by 75 floods by 2023. A century before that, he saw only two.
While no two storms are alike, Charlestonians who were in town in 2015 for the “1,000-year rain event” can’t help but wonder if it will be the same. Here is what it was like in the city in those days.
Downtown Charleston began flooding Thursday night, October 1, with tourist-friendly Market Street several inches of water on the ground. However, Market Street floods regularly. All it takes is a sustained thunderstorm to make that happen.
It was still raining though. And by mid-morning on Saturday, October 3, the flooding in the city was so bad that the local police had begun to close the exits from the center to the area, as well as the roads leading into it. Heavy rains continued throughout the night. The power outage spread quickly.
By the next morning, many parts of the city were under water and rescue workers were going from house to house in the affected areas, evacuating families whose houses had been broken into. The famous golf course was so flooded that kayakers zoomed up and down the green. The city, in the end, had to buy 32 homes on that parcel, which suffered flood damage. Those were demolished to create rain gardens and green space to reduce storm water runoff.
Residents in the area hope that moves like this will prevent the kind of flooding the city saw in 2015—but they’re not letting wishful thinking stop them from taking preventative measures. On Saturday, the city opened five stations where people could fill sandbags to protect their homes.
At the station next to that golf course/makeshift kayaking river, the city dumped more than 110 tons of sand before noon and people lined up twice deep to fill their bags.
Millennials, one resident noted, aren’t as long as they used to be.
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