Helene was a warning. NC must get ready for climate shocks | Opinion

Hurricane Helene’s flooding of western North Carolina left vast destruction, but it should also bring new urgency to construction – how and where to build, not only in the mountains but across the state.

After the deluge that left more than 100 dead in North Carolina, the state must increase its commitment to making communities more resilient as climate change causes more flooding, higher winds, rising seas, longer droughts and more frequent wildfires.

Improving the state’s resiliency is a well-established goal, if not a well-established action. In the wake of Hurricane Florence in 2018, Gov. Roy Cooper created a state Office of Recovery and Resiliency. Meanwhile, researchers at the state’s universities are focused on how to improve building codes and channel development away from flood risks.

But improving the state’s ability to withstand stronger and wetter storms has been slowed by development interests and political resistance to new regulations. Under pressure from the state’s home- building industry, the Republican-controlled legislature recently opened isolated wetlands to development and blocked efforts to strengthen the state’s building code.

The disaster in western North Carolina should make it clear that such impediments need to give way to a broad and robust commitment to improving the state’s resiliency.

Erin Seekamp, a professor who directs the Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative at N.C. State University, said it’s time for a strong consensus about how to respond to the natural forces being fueled by a warming planet.

“Climate change. Even those words in North Carolina have been politically charged,” she said. “We need to realize it’s not a conversation about whether climate change is occurring — it is — but how we are approaching our planning.”

Amanda Martin, the state’s chief resilience officer, said local governments need to consider the siting of new homes and businesses in light of how climate change has expanded flood risks beyond what outdated flood zone maps show.

Martin said, “We’re going to need to remap parts of the state because the hydrology has changed.” Local governments, she said, “need to be careful about where new development goes. There’s a place for people and there’s a place for water.”

Homes and public infrastructure need to reflect the rising pressure from natural forces, she said: “If you want a bridge to last 100 years, you have to build it to survive the climate of the next 100 years.”

North Carolina has made progress on resiliency. The state has a resilience plan . Homes have been moved from chronic flooding areas. A state grant program encourages coastal homeowners to have fortified roofs that withstand powerful winds.

But, as the legislature’s action on wetlands and its inaction on building code improvements show, the growing hazards of long-term climate change are too often ignored in favor of short-term profits. The legislature will return this week to allocate money for relief from Hurricane Helene. Lawmakers should also be investing in reducing the cost of the next natural disaster.

It’s not a question of political ideology. Alabama, a deep red state, has a “Strengthen Alabama Homes” program to make homes more storm resistant.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, Antonia Sebastian, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences, studies how climate and land-use changes affect flood hazards. She said flooding in North Carolina’s mountains shows that the impact of climate change goes beyond coastal areas.

“This is a wakeup call. The whole state can flood,” she said. “If we don’t think about where the next structures are going, we may be unwittingly putting people in harm’s way.”

The state must “design for the future rather than putting things back exactly the way they were before,” she said.

Hurricane Helene’s deluge wasn’t a freak event. It is a warning: Don’t simply restore, prepare..