Hurricanes reveal just how resilient we are, or aren’t

Two extraordinary tropical storms right now are hitting major population centers in very different parts of the world. Hurricane Florence made landfall Friday morning in North Carolina in the U.S. Typhoon Mangkhut, meanwhile, is headed for the Philippines and on to China’s southern coast, perhaps directly at Hong Kong, where it could be the most powerful storm since records began in the city. In both regions, millions of people who require billions of dollars of infrastructure must prepare for winds, rain, storm surges and rebuilding.

Many residents of the Carolinas have evacuated, which is undeniably a good thing — but evacuation is a response, not a plan. North Carolina in particular has done a poor job of planning for a future of bigger, more moisture-laden storms. Six years ago, the state Legislature ordered state and local agencies to ignore scientific models showing rising sea levels when developing their coastal policies, effectively allowing development in vulnerable areas to continue unchecked. A year later, lawmakers weakened the state’s building codes, removing requirements that would better protect homes in the path of tropical storms. As Bloomberg News noted last year, the federal government has its weaknesses, too, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency still uses flood-risk maps that haven’t been updated since the 1970s.