Nearly a quarter of critical infrastructure

One of the ways it’s going to kill us – flooding of critical infrastructure.

Nearly a quarter of U.S. critical infrastructure—utilities, airports, police stations and more—is at risk of being inundated by flooding, according to a new report by First Street Foundation, a Brooklyn nonprofit dedicated to making climate risk more visible to the public.

“Even if your home is far from the risk of flooding or forest fires, you may not so easily escape the systemic impacts from vulnerable critical infrastructure that sometimes extends hundreds of miles,” said Jesse Keenan, a climate-change and real-estate expert at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Remember Texas last winter? When Ted Cruz went bopping off to Cancun?

Recent storms highlighted the vulnerability of the electric grid. In September, Hurricane Ida killed more than 40 people, at least 10 perishing in the heat amid power outages in Louisiana. A winter storm in Texas left more than 4 million people without electricity in February, and over 200 people died, the majority from cold.

It’s not just coasts, it’s also river valleys.

The most threatened areas are concentrated along the coast of the southeastern U.S. and in river-dense areas of Appalachia. In fact, the report found that 17 of the 20 most endangered communities are in Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky and West Virginia.

But nowhere is safe, they say comfortingly.

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