All articles tagged with #levee failures
Recent storms have highlighted the vulnerabilities of aging U.S. levee systems, which were often built informally and are now underfunded and outdated, increasing the risk of catastrophic flooding, especially for disadvantaged communities, amid more extreme weather caused by climate change.
Washington state is experiencing infrastructure failures, including levee breaches and highway closures, due to persistent atmospheric river storms, with one fatality reported and ongoing flood risks exacerbated by climate change and human modifications to rivers.
The Pajaro River in California has breached its levee, flooding freeways and farms, submerging the entire town of Pajaro and forcing thousands of residents in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties to flee. The recent storms could be just a prelude to an even more challenging spring, as the landscape is beyond saturated after a winter that has set or approached records for precipitation. California's vast and aging infrastructure is being tested by this year's onslaught of extreme winter weather, and the cumulative effect of this winter's back-to-back storms has left California in "uncharted territory."