Study: Virginia's Extreme Weather Becoming More Common, More Severe

Standing at Old Town Alexandria’s most notorious block for nuisance flooding and worse, Environment Virginia released a new report Thursday morning revealing that nine in 10 Virginians live in areas hit by recent weather disasters.

The new report, “In the Path of the Storm: Global Warming, Extreme Weather and the Impacts of Weather-Related Disasters in the United States,” examines county-level weather-related disaster declaration data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 2006 through 2011.

Since 2006, Alexandria has experienced five federally declared weather-related disasters, including the severe winter storms of 2009 and 2010 and the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, said Environment Virginia Federal Field Organizer Sarah Bucci, speaking at Union and King streets.

Fairfax and Arlington counties experienced three or more such events during the timeframe studied.

Virginia’s Department of Transportation estimated the cost to repair bridges and roads in Fairfax County to be as high as $10 million and four people were killed from flash floods related to the storm.

“Millions of Virginians have lived through extreme weather causing extremely big problems for Virginia’s economy and our public safety,” she said, adding that global warming is likely to spur even more extreme weather so the state should work to cut dangerous carbon pollution now.

Linda Burchfiel, chair of the Northern Virginia Climate Action Network or NOVACAN, said her group believes the data show that it’s critically important that “we cut the carbon pollution that is fueling global warming.”

James Kinter, director of the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, also spoke at the event, noting that scientific evidence is mounting that the nation will see a rising sea level, more heat waves as well as more intense individual storms and fewer weak ones.

“While we cannot say with certainty specifically how Virginia’s climate will change in this century, we know that many of these changes will significantly affect Virginia both within its borders and as part of the national and global society,” he said.

For example, Tropical Storm Lee caused economic damages of more than $1 billion in the declared disaster states of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Louisiana.

The report urges federal, state and local officials to take steps to better protect the public from the impact of extreme weather events, which the report classifies as “extreme” in relation to a particular historical record at a particular location. The Stafford Act governs disaster response in the United States, outlining that for an event to be considered a “disaster” it must cause damage, warrant assistance, outstrip a community’s ability to cope with it and to be recognized as a disaster.

“Government officials should explicitly factor the potential for global-warming induced changes in extreme weather patterns into the design of public infrastructure, revise policies the encourage construction in areas likely to be at risk of flooding in a warming climate and continue to support research on the implications of global warming,” reads the report.

Among other things, it urges governments to adopt aggressive energy efficiency standards for buildings, appliances, equipment and vehicles; expand renewable electricity standards and clean fuel standards; increase investment in clean transportation options; and take strong steps to clean up existing sources of pollution.