Lessons from North Carolina, a Month On

Oped in Providence Sunday Journal:

As a child, I lived outside Asheville NC, and vividly remember seeing clouds float right outside the car window as we ascended the mountain roads. At those wispy levels, we seemed far and away from whatever happened in the piedmont – the flatland at the mountain’s base. Over the decades, many moved to those mountains as a climate haven, confident that the increasing incidence of extreme weather across the country was indeed “far and away.”

Yet those lofty places learned firsthand last month that there is literally nowhere safe from the severe weather we are now experiencing. Several weeks on, what happened there – 600 miles inland from Hurricane Helene’s landfall, within 24 hours of coming ashore and at elevations well above 2000 feet – simply defies belief.  

Scientists have long warned of the consequences of a warming ocean: the rapid intensification patterns and the extraordinary precipitation embedded in these new storms that rampage across areas we once thought were safe. What we have just seen in North Carolina starkly demonstrates the threat – and it is simply too enormous for residents, business, nonprofits or the government to address alone.

At the Providence Resilience Partnership, we believe that only by all these groups collaborating do we have a chance of preparing effectively for what is inevitably coming. It may be next week, next month or next year. But as surely as we stand now in the coastal city of Providence, with sea level ever rising, our short and shallow rivers frequently overtopped and miles of impervious surface that exacerbate flooding – our turn will come.

And when it inevitably does, our collective ability to work together to help each other will make the difference between people living and dying. How we’ve worked together to prepare our families, our nonprofits, our businesses and our government services will either help us or harm us. The strength of our community – all our community – will determine the outcome when we experience our own Hurricane Helene. Because this is no longer a distant threat. It is a risk right on our doorstep.

At the Providence Resilience Partnership, we focus on an approach we call “climate co-learning,” which brings together residents and experts to assess climate risks and learn how to create resilience strategies together. These place-based projects build shared understanding about severe weather impacts, potential solutions and how to influence the way the city prepares for what we are all facing. It is an intentional approach that seeks to build trust across different groups, a shared sense of urgency and the recognition that we are all in this together.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect post-Helene was to watch disinformation planted and distrust flourish so readily as emergency personnel struggled heroically to deal with conditions no one saw coming. To literally see the rescue process sabotaged by conspiracy theories that cause vulnerable people to resist help. Catastrophic impacts are tragic enough without turning people against each other.

We need to learn lessons from what just happened in a “climate haven”: to trust what scientists have been saying for years and to recognize this threat can decimate our lives, our economy, our buildings in ways we probably can’t even imagine. And we also need to recognize that now is the time to strengthen our community connections and our collective capacity – before we learn the hard way that this threat is bigger than all of us. Please join us in this work.

  Michele Jalbert is Executive Director of the Providence Resilience Partnership which catalyzes work across Providence to build community resilience to climate  impacts. www.providenceresilience.org