Officials in Ouray County, Colorado, have declared a state of emergency after heavy rain storms caused levels of flooding and debris flow that hadn't been seen in decades, KJCT News 8 reported.
What's happening?
The extreme weather in Ouray County is likely to continue, bringing with it even more mudslides, rockslides, rock falls, and debris flows.
"From what I understand, we have more monsoonal rains coming next week. Things have become loose from these past events and will probably slide a lot easier," Ouray County emergency manager Glenn Boyd said.
Why is flooding in Colorado important?
As the Earth continues to overheat — a consequence of our reliance on dirty energy sources such as gas and oil — extreme weather events have become more frequent and more intense.
These events include floods like the ones in Colorado. "As the planet has warmed by 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since the preindustrial revolution era, the United States has also become about 4 percent wetter, according to the federal Climate Science Special Report," the Natural Resources Defense Council explained in an article on the link between climate change and flooding. "The same report says that heavy precipitation events are projected to increase by 50 percent to as much as three times the historical average in just this century."
In the past month, there has been extreme flooding in Vermont, Wisconsin, and China.
What's being done about the flooding?
County officials urged people traveling on Ouray County roadways to be extra alert for rockslides and mudslides.
In other places, such as California, some companies are looking into architectural strategies that can make homes more resilient to rising floodwaters.
But in order to confront the underlying issue that is causing these devastating extreme weather events, it is vital that we move beyond the dirty energy sources that are causing the changes to our climate and toward clean, renewable sources such as wind and solar.
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