East coast flooding

The tragic and unprecedented devastation and loss of life from the remnants of Ida skirting over the northeast has been sobering to watch. Basements with water pouring in, cars up to the doors in flooded streets, boats rescuing people from second floors in Pennsylvania. The images are start and dramatic, with people struggling to survive in the middle of a disaster, but the news will go on after this and not dive into the underlying issues. Simply put, things like this should not be happening in a healthy, modern civilization, with is eyes on the future. Too bad we're anything but that anymore.

From the "peak" perspective, the region has been suffering shortfalls for some time now. The Report Card for America's Infrastructure rates New York at a C-. The wear and tear on cars from driving on city streets is around $650 a year. There are concerns about drinking water safety, and now this. Hurricane Sandy dumped tons of rain on New York back in 2012 and flooded it extensively. Ida comes and does the same thing, with pretty much the same results. New Orleans learned from the lessons of Katrina. New York didn't learn from the lessons of Sandy, or couldn't afford to act on what was learned. Either way, the damage is done. Again.

If a region sustains damage that cannot be repaired, this starts to become a spiral that cannot be stopped, except by allocating resources from outside. People begin to grow frustrated with the things being broken and not fixed, damage to their property from things beyond their control, plus insurance rises. The tax base begins to shrink, and the region starts to depend on outside help to fix problems like these. The only problem is that outside help these days, in the form of federal dollars, is also running on fumes. Enough money has been printed and spent to mitigate the financial damage from covid policies, that inflation is beginning to become a real factor. Therefore, even if funds are supplied to fix something, there will be less and less impact of those funds as material and labor costs rise. In the end, there is less and less ability to prevent things like this happening.

The science is relatively clear on hurricane strength being related to global warming. Warmer waters power stronger hurricanes, something that has been known for decades. Ocean waters are warming due to global warming. Therefore, hurricanes have been and will continue to become more powerful and devastating. This is basic logic which is lost on red-state pundits, but is starting to become very clear to the people who have to deal with these things. There is no need to ask a pointless open-ended question like "What does all this mean?" What it very clearly means is that global warming is beginning to have a real impact on the economy and living conditions of our civilization, and it's likely that this is just the beginning.