These hurricane flood maps reveal the climate future for Miami, NYC and D.C.
As climate change warms the planet, drives up sea levels and energizes hurricanes, the arsenal of dangerous impacts delivered by the fierce storms is expected to get supercharged.
Among the most worrisome: powerful flooding from storm surge.
Rising seas and stronger winds mean the punishing waves pushed ashore by tropical storms and hurricanes will make their way farther and farther inland. That inland march would expose a larger swath of the U.S. coast to the kind of flooding unleashed during Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, and put more people at risk of drowning, the leading cause of death in hurricanes.
An NPR analysis based on modeling from the National Hurricane Center for three critical regions — New York City, Washington, D.C., and Miami-Dade County — found future sea rise alone could expose about 720,000 more people to flooding in the decades to come.
The analysis used three landmark hurricanes — Sandy, Isabel, and Irma — as benchmarks to understand how the impacts of storm surge could grow.
In all three regions, flooding from storm surge that once lingered along the coast travels miles farther inland and grows deeper. By 2080, when sea rise could reach more than three feet, flooding would engulf even more critical infrastructure, including hospitals and schools that often provide shelter.
"Every bit of sea level that we add to this just makes this kind of scenario worse," said Brian Haus, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, who studies the damaging power of storm surge.
Unlike flood waters from rainfall or overflowing canals or rivers, storm surge also carries the power of wind, he said. When a hurricane makes landfall, winds powerful enough to rip a roof off a house push a wall of water onto shore.
"Each time a wave hits, it's just a big spike," Haus said. "That kind of repetitive shock loading is the kind of thing that causes a lot of structural failure."
The National Hurricane Center began testing surge forecasts.
