Oct 16, 2024
When Hurricane Helene drove through the US Southeast late last month, it struck major population centers. It also struck smaller towns in the North Carolina mountains. It wrecked some places. Some of those places have many more dwellers than they did decades ago. That’s because millions of people in the US have moved into so-called “disaster zones,” said a New York Times study.
These movement patterns have left many exposed to certain risks, the Times wrote. Storms, for one. Extreme heat, as a second. This comes as climate change is causing extreme weather, the Times wrote.
For instance, Florida’s coastal cities are often hit by hurricanes. But these cities have added millions of new people in recent years. Phoenix is one of the country’s fastest growing urban regions. But this summer, it saw 100 straight days when the weather soared over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Thousands have moved into the northern California foothills. There, wildfires have become more frequent and intense. And the Houston suburbs have grown quickly in recent years. That’s where Hurricane Beryl knocked out power to millions amid a heat wave this summer.
Besides that, there's an outward growth of people and development in these cities. People move away from inner regions and into suburbs and farther-out “exurbs." This has increased human exposure to natural hazards like tornadoes and wildfires. It’s also made hurricanes more likely to strike zones with more people. It's a trend that experts call “the (growing) bull’s-eye effect.”
Jeffrey Schlegelmilch works at Columbia’s Climate School. He's director of its National Center for Disaster Preparedness. As more people move into these places, they're exposed to hazards, he told the Times. He added that this raises the chance that the hazards may turn into severe disasters.
Reflect: How do you think your community might change in the next ten years due to things like weather and population growth?
Photo of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene from Reuters.
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