Vt. flood shows it can happen anywhere; more information, planning and help is needed, especially in rural areas

Main Street in Barre, Vt., remained covered with floodwater
and mud. (Photo by Hilary Swift, The New York Times)

"This week's flooding in Vermont, in which heavy rainfall caused destruction even miles from any river, is evidence of an especially dangerous climate threat: Catastrophic flooding can increasingly happen anywhere, with almost no warning," report Christopher Flavelle and Rick Rojas of The New York Times. "The idea that anywhere it can rain, it can flood, is not new. But rising temperatures make the problem worse: They allow the air to hold more moisture, leading to more intense and sudden rainfall, seemingly out of nowhere. And the implications of that shift are enormous. . . . The United States, experts warn, is nowhere close to ready for that threat."

Federal flood maps, which are often inaccurate, have been used "as a guide to determine where to build housing and infrastructure," the Times reports, but the country lacks "a comprehensive, current, national precipitation database that could help inform homeowners, communities and the government about the rising risks from heavy rains. In Vermont, the true number of homes at risk from flooding is three times as much as what federal flood maps show, according to data from the First Street Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit research group. . . . That so-called 'hidden risk' is staggeringly high in other parts of the country as well. In Utah, the number of properties at risk when accounting for rainfall is eight times as much as what appears on federal flood maps, according to First Street."

Flash flooding "often brings tragedy to places that can least handle it," the Times reports, citing the floods nearly a year ago in southeastern Kentucky, which is still struggling to recover. "The flooding in Vermont highlights the need to spend more on modeling and planning for flood events, said Mathew Sanders, who leads state resilience efforts for the Pew Charitable Trusts." It also shows that "The government can't focus its resilience efforts only on the obvious areas, near coasts or rivers."

Congress has increased funding for climate-resilience projects, but the $50 billion for such projects, in the latest infrastructiure bill, "the largest infusion in American history . . . still falls far below the need," Flavelle and Rojas write. "This spring, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it had received $5.6 billion in applications for two of its main disaster-preparedness programs — almost twice as much as was available."

The U.S. faces a steep preparedness climb-time, funding and the constant unpredictability of weather are all challenges. "As seas rise and storms get worse, the most flood-prone parts of the country — places like New Orleans, Miami, Houston, Charleston or even areas of New York City — could easily consume the government's entire budget for climate resilience without solving the problem for any of them," Flavelle and Rojas write. "Anna Weber, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who specializes in flood risks, said the government needs to direct more money to the most economically vulnerable communities — those places that are least able to pay for resilience projects on their own."