Costs of Climate Change - Storm Damage - Beryl

In what might become a series, I will post about articles highlighting damage that is becoming more common as the climate warms. 

In mid-July, Hurricane Beryl stormed its way through the Caribbean, into Mexico, through Texas, finally ending up hitting Nova Scotia around July 11th or 12th, 2024

As we saw during the COVID Pandemic, when some brushed off concerns about the virus with dismissive comments like "It's just the flu" (a "flu" that killed over 7 million people), Hurricane Beryl was dismissed by some as "Just a category 1 hurricane" by the time it made landfall in Texas.

As this article points out, focusing too much on the numerical category of any particular hurricane can cause one to ignore other factors that can make a hurricane more devastating than one might expect.

Despite being "just a Category 1 hurricane", Beryl knocked out power to 2.7 million customers and was blamed for 8 deaths in the US.  Many of those customers have been without power for a week or more.

By the time Beryl passed through Nova Scotia, it was a mere shadow of it's former self, but there were still hours of torrential rain; amounts of between 30-45 mm per hour in the Annapolis Valley.  One youth was swept away by a flash flood and drowned.  A year ago, 4 people died in a similar event.  Basements flooded to the level of electrical panels.  Clogged drains and damaged culverts from last year's flooding had not been resolved meaning waters from this flood had nowhere to go.

A video of flooding in Nova Scotia.

This article shows some of the flooding.  As one local mayor noted, "These storms are becoming very frequent....".  Which is exactly what climatologists have been warning us about for a number of years.  The climate is warming.  Warm air holds more moisture which leads to more precipitation during storms.  And the storms themselves are becoming more frequent because warmer ocean waters and warmer land masses tend to encourage the development of more and stronger storms.

Remember, the point of this is not that "this" hurricane was "caused" by climate change.  It's just that storms like this are happening more often, the damage is often more severe and we have to pay to clean up the mess.  

This article looks at insured damage and how it has increased, just in BC.

"...insurance companies are increasingly limiting or hiking rates for the kinds of damages they'll cover."

Just some of the costs of climate change.

[Edit:  July 17th, 2024 - more than week after Beryl passed through Texas, more than 60,000 people in the state still do not have power.  One more person was found dead in her apartment, the day the heat index reached +43C..  Eighteen other deaths have been attributed to the storm a storm that was "only" a Category 1 hurricane by the time it landed in Texas.  One family estimated that between staying in hotels and eating out every meal, they will have spent around $10,000 on living expenses.  Governor Abbott says that Texans have lost faith in the utility company.  Seems to me there a faith issue related to the Texas government as well.]