Three of the strongest hurricanes to hit the United States in years have caused extreme flooding, deadly storm surge and devastation to homes and property in the past month. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria were all a category 4 when they made landfall in the United States. Is climate change the blame?
In the wee hours of September 20th, Hurricane Maria’s outer eyewall decimated the island of St. Croix with Category 5-strength winds. The island was a place of refuge for people fleeing Hurricane Irma’s earlier damage in St. Thomas and St. John.
A few hours later, the eye of Hurricane Maria made landfall at Yabacua, Puerto Rico, with maximum sustained winds of 155-mph. This, now weakened, Category 4 storm washed away roads and destroyed the power grid. Maria was the strongest hurricane to hit Puerto Rico since 1932.
Governor Ricardo Rossello said the entire island, about the size and population of Connecticut, could be without power for up to six months. Food, fresh water and communications are limited. 95% of cell sites are out of service, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
A dam on the Guajataca River failed and The National Weather Service has urged the 70,000 residents in the Isabela and Quebradillas to evacuate. “It’s a structural failure. I don’t have any more details,” Governor Rossella told CBSNews.com. “We are trying to evacuate as many people as possible.”
The First Lady of Puerto Rico, Beatriz Rosello, created a relief fund, United for Puerto Rico, where people can donate, money, emergency supplies (food, first aid kits, blankets, etc.) as well as construction supplies (chain saws, ropes, tarps, etc.).
When Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas Gulf Coast in August, it was also a Category 4 storm — unleashing 130-mph winds and feet of rainfall. It lingered over Texas for five days while dropping over 50 inches of rain: turning streets into rivers and neighborhoods into lakes.
When Harvey finally moved onto Louisiana, it dropped 64 inches of rain in Jefferson County alone. Reuters reports that Texas Governor Greg Abbott estimated Harvey damage to be between $150 billion to $180 billion.
Hurricane Irma’s Category 5 winds lashed the U.S. Virgin Islands of St. Thomas and St. John on September 6th. Irma tore the roof off of the only hospital in St. Thomas. Patients were evacuated to St. Croix. Irma sustained 185-mph winds for 37 hours, the longest any cyclone has maintained that intensity.
Irma triggered the largest hurricane evacuation ever in the United States when over six million people were urged to leave their homes in the Sunshine State.
As Hurricane Irma approached Florida, Miami’s mayor implored the President and the EPA to acknowledge climate change. Mayor Tomás Regalado told the Miami Herald, “If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is. This is truly, truly a poster child for what is to come.”
President Trump has tweeted that climate change is a hoax, and that these recent storms may not change his mind. “We’ve had bigger storms than this,” President Trump told White House reporters on Sept. 14th. “And if you go back into the 1930s and the 1940s and you take a look we’ve had storms over the years that have been bigger than this.”
Most climate scientists agree that human behavior fuels climate change. A warmer atmosphere means warmer oceans and more water vapor. Hurricanes need that warm water to grow and that water vapor means heavier rainfall. The frequency may not increase, but those storms that do form may be stronger, produce more rain, have higher storm surge and faster wind speeds. “Previous very active (hurricane) years were 2005 and 2010,” Kevin Trentbert, climate scientist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told NPR. “And along with 2017, they experienced warm Atlantic Ocean temperatures. “So this sets the stage. So the overall trend is global warming from human activities.” “
Population growth and development can exacerbate storm risks by erasing wetlands, everglades, prairies and other grasslands from the landscape — Mother Nature’s way to withstand and naturally absorb rainwater and slow-down a storm’s intensity.
Hurricane season stretches from June 1st to November 30th so there is still plenty of time for more storms to develop. Is this the shape of things to come?Hurricane specialist, Kerry Emanuel, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told Grist, “The consensus among those who study the relationship between climate and hurricanes is that the incidence of intense storms — like Harvey, Irma, and Maria — should go up as the climate warms.”
