River Floods: The Next Big Threat

I’ve written about many kinds of natural and manmade disasters for this blog, including system-hacking, terrorism, forest fires, earthquakes, and more. Now there’s a new and emerging threat that emergency planners must begin taking into account – river floods.

Why River Floods are Problematic

A recent study published by Scientific American aims to explain and quantify the threat.  The root cause, as you might expect, is climate change. Obviously, this increasingly volatile weather increases the risk of coastal flooding, but globally we are more prepared for this type of event than we are for river floods.

According to the study, the U.S. alone will need to double existing river flood protections, and many other countries are also in the same boat (pun intended!).  The paper estimates that at least a million U.S. residents live in an at-risk area.

The paper makes another interesting distinction related to the pace of climate change.  The timeframe the study focuses on is 25 years, because no matter what we do as a society from here on out, the effects of previous climate impacts will continue to be felt for at least 25 years – a phenomenon known as climate inertia.  And the effects are already being felt, as according to NOAA, 2017 was the most expensive year on record for natural disaster damage ($300 billion).

In the final analysis, we, as emergency planners, need to be prepared for this and any other type of disaster scenario we can possibly imagine.  So now is the time to add river floods to your company’s repertoire of disaster scenarios for training programs, exercises and drills.  Good luck!