The assault of Hurricane Sandy on the Eastern US on October 29, 2012, should be remembered as a “Day of Infamy” — right alongside December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001. While climatologists may argue about the role that climate change did or did not have in creating or strengthening Hurricane Sandy, there should no dispute that:
1. The United States is woefully unprepared for natural disasters of this magnitude, and
2. Hurricane Sandy is just the first of what will be an increasingly frequent parade of natural catastrophes. It is already too late to stop the impact of what we’ve already done. The challenge now is to withstand the onslaughts that are coming.
Our parents and grandparents recognized the meaning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and jumped into action, united and energized, to meet the imminent threat.
Are we prepared to do the same?
December 7, 1941
September 11, 2001
October 29, 2012
Four days from now, we vote in a historic election. One party has been telling us for years that climate change is a “hoax”. That same party brought us the isolationists while war was brewing in Europe and Asia (FDR defeated isolationist Republican Wendell Willkie in 1940). The attack on Pearl Harbor ended isolationist sentiment in 1941.
Hurricane Sandy’s attack on the Eastern US should do the same today.
…especially given the high praise politicians, FEMA, etc. have I think rightfully gotten for handling the response. I’ll save days of infamy for events which people actually deliberately initiated.
Firefighters and rescuers did heroic things after the Pearl Harbor attack as well.
We are in abject denial about the reality of climate change. Neither campaign has discussed it in this pivotal national election. That abject denial means that we have invested NOTHING to mitigate the consequences of what’s already happened.
This natural catastrophe is a wakeup call to reset our priorities. You apparently prefer to sleep through the alarm.
…I just prefer to not equate natural disasters with acts of war. I made no comparison to those who helped with the aftermath of the two attacks, just that those assisting with Sandy have done very well themselves. Your coming within in a hair’s breadth of calling me a denier is no more helpful than your coming within a hair’s breadth of calling me racist when we discuss those issues. There are actual deniers and I agree we haven’t done enough, but equating those who don’t use extreme rhetoric in your direction with those who DO use extreme rhetoric in the opposite direction doesn’t accomplish anything.
The salient point is that they are both crises. The point here is that we were always quick to recognize a need for action in a war crisis, we seem to be slow to do so for climate. This is understandable to a certain extent because the climate issue didn’t happen all of a sudden.
The other thing that could be thought of as comparable as crises is that they all represent a call to action and a mobilization of national resources in response. Again the contrast is that we seem all to willing to respond to war crises, but not as willing on the climate crisis.
So is the comparison extreme? Depends on the particulars being compared, but it’s not extreme to compare salient characteristics – and in this case there are salient characteristics that make the comparison legitimate.
Unless you deny the reality of climate change, then “natural” disasters like this will happen more and more frequently. Lower Manhattan and the subways flooded because of a fourteen foot tidal surge. Add a foot or two of water from rising sea level, and that becomes a twelve foot tidal surge.
When a major earthquake struck San Francisco, California immediately began rebuilding to withstand future quakes. We, in contrast, are faced with a presidential candidate who is on record proposing to eliminate FEMA and representing a party who DOES explicitly deny global warming. Republican control of the Senate means that James Imhofe — one of the most extreme deniers in public life — would regain his control of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
As was pointed out by mr-lynne, Pearl Harbor was a call to action that America immediately recognized and heeded. I suggest that Hurricane Sandy represents a far greater threat to this nation than the 9/11 attack, a threat that is just as immediate.
The absence of a specific villain does not lessen the urgency of the event.
… I think you might be on to something wrt Sandy being a tipping point in the ‘debate’ (such as it is…) What’s more the demonstration has been clearly made, and none can deny it, that the governments infrastructure is the one thing that allows so many people to live so close together, and to do so harmoniously: take that away and things get dark, literally and figuratively, very quickly.
However, I don’t think you can say this:
One of the largest recorded storms in the history of recording storms hits the bullseye on one of the most populous 100 sq miles in the world and we’ve only got some 100 odd deaths. That’s actually kinda miraculous if you think about it. I’d have to say that the casualty rate would have to climb dramatically and those survivors would end up long term homeless or forcibly relocated (still a possibility, no doubt…) before we say that the government has some defined inability, or indeed, failed, in its handling of the situation.
Comparing Sandy to future storms is more instructive than to the past.
We are indeed fortunate that the area suffered so few deaths and injuries. At the same time, we saw in Sandy that a storm like this cripples an entire region. Sandy happened during warm weather, so that most areas received rain and the cool air that followed was still manageable. What will happen when the super-storm is a blizzard, and when the following cold shot is a sub-zero Arctic blast?
Yesterday’s Boston Globe included an updated flood zone map for Boston, showing the results of a storm surge of only five feet (less than half the size of the surge that hit New York). In 1996, the Green Line was shut down for days because of flooding from the Muddy River after a twelve inch rainfall on October 20.
Flooded Beacon Street Portal
Flooded Kenmore Mezzanine, after a day of pumping
What do you think happens to the MBTA when Boston Harbor swallows the downtown the way Battery Park was swallowed? What do you think happens to the Big Dig tunnels in a scenario like this?
Please bear in mind that these are not scenarios from some tacky science-fiction movie, these are going to happen — we’ve already assured that by denying climate change for more than a decade.
The media assault by the deniers has been very effective. We now know, from the science, that anthropogenic global warming is not only happening but in fact the earlier projections from the IPCC understate the impact. Yet the share of Americans who embrace the denier lies is larger now than it was ten years ago.
The fact that I am able to extinguish a grease fire on my stove does not mean that I can safely ignore the knob-and-tube wiring arcing in the walls (sorry, I just bought an old house).