Are our cities prepared for extreme precipitation dates?
By Ranjan Panda
From Mumbai to Houston, cities have caught up with heavy precipitation events in a much fiercer way than ever before. As the world gowingly moves into the cities, the progress symbol - thet they are - is in great danger. They are sinking, their infrastructures have been found grossly lacking to adapt to climate induced disasters such as heavy rainfall and the consequent floods.
Climate change, no doubt, is at the centre of this but the way we are planning our cities too have to blame largely for the devastation. Is there a solution at sight? I don’t think anyone has an answer to this right at the moment.
Houston down by 2 cm
Technological advancement is certainly making us more aware about the kind of disasters we are facing and their probable impacts. Be it depression or Hurricanes, our forecasting has increased even though accuracy of the predictions are still facing lot of questions. Similarly our preparation efforts have improved than before. That’s the reason, evacuation drives have become better and deaths have reduced. But there are some disturbing results that have come to be known and yet we are not prepared to face them the way we would want to.
The Atlantic reported it, adding, “Why this would happen is simpler than you might think. A gallon of water weighs about 8.34 pounds. And by one estimate, Harvey dropped 33 trillion gallons of water across the area it hit. So that’s roughly 275 trillion pounds”. That can have a lot of devastating effects for which our city planners – howsoever economically and technologically advanced they may be – would not be prepared as yet.
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