This is a shout-out to all of y'all in DC to take action on climate change before it's too late! Your next opportunity is Friday December 4 from 12-1 at the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
If you were in the city when hurricane Isabel struck in 2003, you know that, something like New Orleans, DC is also a coastal city. As Steve Tracton remembers, "water overtopped the wall along Washington Channel onto, yes, Water Street, from just under I-395 southeast to the, yes, Titanic Memorial. The well known Washington DC Fish Market was inundated, and nearby underground parking garages were flooded with cars bobbing around like toy ducks in a bathtub."
I was teaching ballet in Alexandria, VA, at the time. The dance studio, two blocks up the hill from the waterfront, was flooded and I watched a man kayak up King Street.
Climate change isn't happening somewhere else or sometime in the future. We're in it, now, and it's time to figure out how to deal with the damage we've already caused and take immediate action to bring carbon dioxide levels back down below the dangerous tipping point of 350 ppm.
In DC, the National Capital Planning Commission, has begun to assess how the damage we've already caused the climate will be affecting us here in DC. Their Flood Report acknowledges that, built as it was in a tidal basin (the White House south lawn, Federal Triangle and the National Mall were all once under water), the federal city has always experienced floods. But, the report makes clear that climate change is exacerbating the problem:
Flooding in Washington is exacerbated with higher sea levels. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Chesapeake Bay sea levels are forecast to rise approximately one foot over 100 years. The American Museum of Natural history forecasts that a rise in the Potomac River of one foot, combined with a major storm surge, would make the Jefferson Memorial an island and flood the National Mall up to the Reflecting Pool. Hurricane Isabel (2003) produced much more severe flooding in the region than an unnamed August 1933 hurricane that was similar in its storm track, tidal surge, maximum sustained wind speed, and minimum pressure, possibly as a result of the relative sea rise of one foot since 1933.
Perhaps it's time to build an ark.