Homeowners Chris and Sue evacuate their home with their dog Buddy as floodwaters rise in Rigaud, Que., on April 22.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
In 2015, I went to New Orleans to see how the recovery from Hurricane Katrina was going – 10 years on.
Certainly, the city was more like its old self. Bourbon Street was bopping. The French Quarter was teeming with tourists. Restaurants were packed. And yet, some things hadn’t changed. The roads, for one, remained horrible, some so bumpy and riddled with potholes they were almost undrivable.
At a town hall with citizens hosted by then-mayor Mitch Landrieu, the state of the roads was brought up.
“They were bad before Katrina,” said Mr. Landrieu in response to a question about when the roads would be fixed. “That’s what happens when your city is built on a swamp.”
Flood hazard mapping is behind schedule and doesn’t account for climate change, audit finds
Yes, the only major American city below sea level is built on a swamp. Which is why the roads are unlikely to get any better. More surely, according to a new report, things are getting much worse.
According to a paper published in the journal, Nature Sustainability, southern Louisiana could see sea levels rise between three and seven metres and lose three-quarters of its remaining coastal wetlands in the coming decades. This will cause the “shoreline to migrate” as much as 100 kilometres inland, marooning New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
“In paleo-climate terms, New Orleans is gone,” one of the paper’s authors, Jesse Keenan, an expert in climate adaption at Tulane University, told The Guardian. “The question is how long it has.”
The paper recommended politicians start planning now for the phased-in, permanent evacuation of the city.
Which brings me to this country, which is confronting major climate change-related issues of its own, including increased flooding and melting permafrost that is threatening homes and roads in vast areas of the north.
This week, the Auditor-General issued a report highly critical of the lack of progress made on a portal the federal government is building that will allow Canadians to learn what their personal flood risk is simply by entering their home address.
Not only is the portal not yet operational, even when it’s a go it won’t take into account the impact of climate change. Which is sort of like setting up a Future of Jobs portico that doesn’t factor in AI.
“Climate change projections and easily available flood maps are needed to reliably inform long-term planning decisions, such as where to build homes or develop infrastructure,” Jerry DeMarco, Environment Commissioner operating out of the AG’s office, said at a news conference.
“Canadians face escalating risks and higher disaster recovery costs in the absence of up-to-date information.”
According to the report, roughly 80 per cent of heavily populated areas in Canada are at least partially located in flood-hazard zones. Ottawa is spending about $230-million a year on flood relief, a number that will likely grow exponentially in the coming years. Insured liabilities are greater still.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada says catastrophic losses due to water-related damage now exceed about $2-billion annually, up from $456-million a year from 1998 to 2008. So we are spending hundreds of millions recovering from floods – yet Canadians can’t access the information they need to possibly avoid a catastrophe in the first place.
And it’s not like the information isn’t out there. It’s already available to insurance companies, which use the data to help determine people’s insurance rates. So, insurance companies can access this information, but the people they are insuring can’t? Makes no sense.
The Auditor-General’s message couldn’t have been clearer: the delay in making flood-risk maps available is putting people’s property at risk and is creating problems that could be avoided.
Back in New Orleans, the situation would appear to be beyond hope. When I talked to Mr. Landrieu in a school gymnasium after his town hall 11 years ago, he conceded it would cost multiple billions to fortify New Orleans and the surrounding area from the impacts of climate change – specifically rising sea levels.
“We’re in a tough spot,” he said. “Nobody was talking about climate change when this city was being built hundreds of years ago. Now we are living the reality of it and it is likely only going to get worse.”
The population of New Orleans has been steadily declining the last several years. People can see the writing on the wall and are getting out while they can still get something for their homes. The wealthy will likely be okay; the poor will surely be the ones who stay and suffer the most.
It seems like no one talks about climate change anymore, but it hasn’t gone away. And with each passing year it will become an even bigger presence in our lives.
We need to be prepared.