Lessons from Texas: We aren't ready for today's extreme weather

The Hill

a day ago

President Trump is not known as a compassionate man. But if he were, he'd probably be rethinking his decision to gut the federal programs that help families deal with weather disasters.
He obviously has no respect for science. If he did, he would finally admit that climate scientists have been correct all along: Fossil fuels are changing the weather in terrible ways.
As I write this, a week after the flash flood in Texas, the death toll is estimated at 120, with at least 170 people still missing. Recovery teams are engaged in the grim job of recovering the bodies of adults and children from the grotesque tangles of rubble in and along the Guadalupe River.
The Texas catastrophe is the deadliest weather event so far this month, but it's not the only one. In New Mexico, a flash flood described as 'unprecedented' killed two children and an adult when the Rio Ruidoso river rose a record 20 feet. Sixty-five other victims were rescued. The flood was partly the result of fires that swept through the area last year, destroying hillside vegetation that held rain where it fell.
On July 7, the Haw River between Greensboro and Durham, N.C., rose 32.5 feet, nearly setting a new record. Flood emergencies and flood watches were also underway in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Federal streamflow monitoring showed water levels more than 90 percent above normal across much of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains.
The National Weather Service says flood fatalities have gone up. There were 145 last year, compared to the 25-year average of 85. According to The Washington Post, freshwater events, rather than coastal storm surges, now cause the majority of flood fatalities in the U.S.
Although floods are the most common weather disasters, heat is the deadliest. In June, Climate Central reported extreme heat was at least three times more likely for 174 million Americans — nearly half the population. High humidity was driving the heat index above 105 degrees Fahrenheit on the East Coast, east of the Great Lakes, in the Ohio Valley, and in the interior South.
On July 1, one-third of the lower 48 states and 72 million people were experiencing drought. As of June 27, there had been 1,053 tornadoes and 67 tornado deaths this year. By July 9, 8,200 firefighters and support personnel were fighting 99 large wildfires in 11 states. So far during the year, 37,483 wildfires had burned nearly 2.4 million acres.
Overall, the 10-year summer average of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Extremes Index, which tracks hurricanes, heavy rain, droughts and temperatures, is 58 percent higher than it was in the 1980s. Overall, the 10-year summer average of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Extremes Index, which tracks hurricanes, heavy rain, droughts and temperatures, is 58 percent higher than it was in the 1980s. From 2012 to 2022, the U.S. had 166 billion-dollar disasters that cost a combined $1.3 trillion and 5,871 lives.
These extremes are precisely what climate scientists have predicted for decades due to past and present fossil-fuel pollution. Fossil fuels have baked much more deadly weather into our future. They still provide more than 80 percent of America's energy. Trump wants the U.S. to produce and burn more. He and Congress have scrapped the clean energy incentives that became law three years ago under President Biden.
Although the U.S. can't solve the climate problem alone, it produces more climate-altering pollution than any other nation except China. Left unmitigated, global warming is expected to make parts of the world unlivable, including Phoenix, southern Texas, Louisiana, Florida and the Carolinas. The rest of the U.S. will not be exempt from misery; in fact, the entire country is experiencing some of it now.
The nonpartisan organization Rebuild by Design notes that 40 states experienced 10 or more major disasters (those causing more than $1 billion in damages) from 2011 to 2024. During that period, every county in 28 states suffered at least one major weather disaster. Only two of America's 435 congressional districts escaped big weather disasters. More than 315 million Americans — 95.5 percent of the U.S. population — live in counties hit by major weather disasters since 2011.
The federal government has spent nearly $118 billion on disaster mitigation and recovery since 2011 — expenditures that Trump wants to shift to states. But whether disaster relief comes from Washington or the state, the costs ultimately trickle down to every household and taxpayer.
Most Americans are beginning to acknowledge reality. In April, Gallup found that 63 percent of American adults, mostly Democrats, say climate change is underway. Forty-eight percent — the highest since Gallup began asking — say global warming will pose a serious threat to them and their way of life in the future.
That future has arrived. However, climate change remains a manufactured partisan issue, with only 14 percent of Republicans sharing the opinion that it threatens their futures.
More people are moving into risky places than are moving out. Even among those who accept the reality of global warming, there is a costly and potentially fatal gap between opinion and action. Last year, in an important series of articles, Yale Climate Connections warned that the 'U.S. remains woefully unprepared for the coming extreme storms and floods.' The people in Flash Flood Alley clearly were not prepared, despite a long history of severe floods. Local officials decided repeatedly that installing a $1 million flood warning system was too expensive. The cost of inaction is now much greater — a valuable lesson for the country.
Nevertheless, Trump has dismantled federal climate science and plans to phase out FEMA, the government's principal disaster assistance agency. Trump is even trying to stop states from fighting climate change.
But he can't phase out the facts. Communities cannot assume today that the most recent disaster will be the last, or that the next disaster will be like those of the past. Nor can they assume the federal government has their back, as it has since at least 1803. Every at-risk community should be prepared to respond and recover when disaster strikes again. Plans are better made in the calm before the storm than in the chaos that follows.
At the same time, we must address the cause of climate change as well as its symptoms. The U.S. must transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. The tragedies that have become so common are the result of our negligence. As we see in Texas, our children are already paying the price.
William S. Becker is a former official at the U.S. Energy Department and founder of its Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development during the Clinton administration. The Center worked with disaster-stricken communities to help them incorporate sustainable development into their recoveries. He is the author of ' The Creeks Will Rise: People Coexisting with Floods,' which tells the story of a community that moved away from a floodplain and proposes several FEMA reforms.