{"id":254,"date":"2021-06-01T15:39:21","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T19:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.pirg-test.com\/georgia\/edfund\/articles\/hell-high-water\/"},"modified":"2022-08-06T07:19:44","modified_gmt":"2022-08-06T11:19:44","slug":"hell-in-high-water","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/dev.pirg-test.com\/georgia\/edfund\/articles\/hell-in-high-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Hell in high water"},"featured_media":12737,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":false,"_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":""},"campaign_tax":[139],"display_option":[],"issue_tax":[],"person_tax":[],"region_tax":[],"state":[9,12,13,23,24,2,33,36,41,42,46],"topic_tax":[111,113],"class_list":["post-254","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"details":{"helper_taxonomies":{"topics":[111,113],"collection":false,"press_type":false,"person_type":false,"resource_type":false,"event_type":false,"campaigns":139,"department":false,"level":false,"states":[2,9,12,13,23,24,33,36,41,42,46],"act_option":false,"display_option":false,"primary":{"topic":113}},"featured_image":12737,"caption_override":"","excerpt":"You never know what a hurricane will unearth","updated_on":null,"sidebar_action":null,"hide_hero_image":false,"sidebar_action_query_string":""},"helper_people_group":{"title":"Authors","entities":[{"type":"dynamic","dynamic_person":{"site":16,"people":"144"},"information":{"name":"","image":"","role":"","biography":"","contact":{"twitter":"","facebook":"","email":"","phone":""}}}]},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_wysiwyg":{"content":"

As hurricane season begins, we\u2019re all prepared for the devastation caused by wind, rain, tornadoes and floods. The catastrophic damage,\u00a0exacerbated by climate change<\/a>, has become worse in recent years and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (NOAA) is predicting another\u00a0above-normal Atlantic hurricane season<\/a>\u00a0in 2021.<\/p>\n

While many of the hurricanes\u2019 effects, such as the wind damage to structures, are obvious, these powerful storms also unleash insidious, toxic dangers that are neither easy to recognize nor remediate. The regions of the United States prone to hurricane damage are rife with accidents waiting to happen:\u00a0Superfund sites<\/a>,\u00a0lagoons full of pig manure<\/a>,\u00a0pits full of coal ash<\/a>\u00a0and more.<\/p>\n

The first hurricane I ever covered as a TV news producer was Hurricane Floyd in 1999. While that storm became notorious in North Carolina for devastating flooding that extended far inland (coffins floating up out of the ground!<\/a>), I caught the storm as it crawled up the Eastern Seaboard parallel to Florida.<\/p>\n

I had been in Texas covering a murder trial. My crew got a call from our assignment desk, telling us that Hurricane Floyd was evolving into a serious storm, and we needed to head to the airport and catch the next available flight to Florida.<\/p>\n

Most of the Sunshine State had already shut down, but we managed to board the last plane into one of the Panhandle airports. (Panama City? Fort Walton Beach? Tallahassee? I don\u2019t remember.) There, our crew picked up a handful of minivans and Ryder trucks and headed east on Interstate 10. As we drove further, the situation became more and more surreal: At some point, we became the only vehicles traveling eastbound as hordes of people fled in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

We arrived in Jacksonville at dusk, with an eerie light and calm hanging over the often-bustling downtown. After a night of restless sleep, we arose to meet the satellite truck at the live shot location on one of the beaches east of the city. For wind protection, the truck was parked on the leeward side of a hotel. Several reporters and photographers set up their equipment while the foamy Atlantic inched up into the parking lot. Hour after hour, the reporters did live TV hits for national networks and local stations across the country. And hour after hour, the foam rose, until it was above our waists. It seemed like we were in a giant outdoor tub and someone had poured in too much bubble bath.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll never know what was in the dirty foam I trudged through all day, but odds are it wasn\u2019t healthy. Like too many parts of the United States, the area around Jacksonville is blighted by\u00a0Superfund sites<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0coal ash<\/a>\u00a0dumping grounds. Even if floodwaters don\u2019t unearth toxic pollutants, hurricane-stoked flooding often\u00a0overwhelms sewer systems<\/a>\u00a0and propels fecal-contaminated water into low-lying streets and homes.<\/p>\n

I got to leave the flood zone as the storm moved up the coast. But all those people who were fleeing westward before landfall eventually returned to Jacksonville. Many of them, like other evacuees returning home after hurricanes, likely found unwanted squatters:\u00a0water-borne diseases<\/a>,\u00a0mold<\/a>\u00a0and other toxics.<\/p>\n

While some of this is unavoidable, our elected leaders have historic opportunities right now to minimize the health and environmental risks of hurricanes. First, Congress can pass the\u00a0Superfund Reinvestment Act<\/a>. This bill would reverse the slowdown in Superfund site cleanups, speeding up efforts to make the United States cleaner and safer. Second, Congress can dramatically increase funding to prevent sewage overflows and runoff pollution. Finally, if we\u00a0can properly execute President Joe Biden\u2019s plan<\/a>\u00a0to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, we can help slow global warming and avoid the worst potential impacts of climate change \u2014 including increasingly common and severe hurricanes.<\/p>\n

Passing and implementing these plans should be bipartisan no-brainers that will help Americans of every demographic. Take it from someone who\u2019s been there: You don\u2019t want to spend even a minute of your life wading through waist-deep mystery foam.<\/p><\/body><\/html>","":null}}]},"yoast_head":"\nHell in high water<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You never know what a hurricane will unearth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dev.pirg-test.com\/georgia\/edfund\/articles\/hell-in-high-water\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hell in high water\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You never know what a hurricane will unearth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dev.pirg-test.com\/georgia\/edfund\/articles\/hell-in-high-water\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Georgia PIRG Education Fund\" 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