Regardless of whether you “believe” in climate change, it’s clear something is happening on a planetary scale that is making freak storms and cataclysmic weather events more common globally – and locally.
First stop: Libya. Last week, torrential, unprecedented rainfall caused two dams to break, washing billions of gallons of water down onto thousands of unsuspecting residents living in Derna, washing their homes, businesses and entire neighborhoods into the sea. Tens of thousands of people are missing and presumed dead, with the latest official death toll reported at 11,300.
Next stop: Merrimack Valley.
On the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 8, a storm shattered the calm of an otherwise pleasant late summer afternoon. Between 3 and 4 p.m., what started out as a thunderstorm rapidly accelerated into what one local official called a “microburst.”
The storm dropped torrential rain and hail, and brought high winds that pulverized already saturated ground from recent, unprecedented rainfall events.
The water-logged ground made it easier for the 60 mph wind gusts to knock down enormous, old oaks and pines, some of which landed on top of houses, others on cars, and many on roads and powerlines. Fortunately, nobody was killed in this particular event, although there were some minor injuries reported and extensive damage.
Sept. 8 came on top of two extreme flooding events that hit Andover, North Andover and Lawrence, as well as Haverhill, in August. Again, while there were no deaths, the unprecedented amount of rain caused extensive damage to homes and businesses, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in losses.
It is time for everyone to do two things: First, think about what you can do to prevent climate change on a personal level; and two, push your communities and utility companies to improve the infrastructure and plan for these kinds of events becoming more common in the future.
In the Merrimack Valley, as well as other parts of Massachusetts where recent flooding has been catastrophic, we are lucky to have local, state and federal agencies that specialize in infrastructure and warning systems that prevent deaths and — most of the time — limit damage to public and private property.
But as the last storm showed, even a modern society like ours has weak spots. Most important, perhaps, is our over-reliance on an electrical grid that is proving to be extremely vulnerable to storms.
As good as public works and National Grid crews are at removing broken trees and restoring power, it’s time for utility companies to step up and be part of the solution. The electrical grid needs to be hardened so it’s not so easily brought down during these more violent storms. Maybe it’s time for them to spend some real money and bury power lines underground, rather than leaving them hanging on wooden poles that snap when under any kind of stress.
Homeowners are right to complain about frequent, chronic power outages in their neighborhoods. In a modern society like ours having the electricity go out three or four times a summer is unacceptable. People with young children, patients with dialysis machines, or sick elderly people with oxygen tanks need that electricity to survive.
Not everyone can afford a generator.
Meanwhile, cities and towns need to shore up their underground drainage systems. It is no coincidence that most flooding occurs on streets and roads, carrying cars away. The drainage systems under these streets are clearly unable to handle the kind of rainfall that’s been happening. In Haverhill, a faulty drain pipe led to a deep and dangerous sinkhole. This will require federal assistance, much like solving the combined sewer overflow problem requires federal aid to keep raw sewage from pouring into the Merrimack River, as it does during every major rain event.
Cities and towns also need to create some kind of ongoing tree-maintenance program, to identify weak trees and trim the limbs of those overhanging power lines.
Finally, something needs to be done about dams in this state, where hundreds of them have been deemed unsafe. That issue was brought home in North Andover when a dam holding a retention pond failed during one of the August storms, leading to flooding of businesses and residences in the High Street neighborhood. A similar situation created flooding in Leominster last week.
The U.S. is not so different from Libya, where infrastructure collapse led to widespread damage. We have escaped the kind of death count that occurred in that northern African country, but the lesson is the same: It is time to address the weaknesses in our communities to prepare for a future in which “microbursts” and mega rainstorms are the norm rather than the exception.