Climate Change

Heat waves have hit cities around the country this summer. With extreme heat and heat-related disasters projected to increase, local governments are considering the ways they can help mitigate risk.

As climate change produces heat waves and other problems, a handful of cities have hired chief heat officers to help residents cool off. What’s driving this trend and how much say will the CHO have over technology?

California is struggling through drought, but a growing number of scientists say climate change — the same catastrophe that’s drying up the West — is also increasing the risk of nightmarish flooding across much of the state.

Over the next three decades, Texas will see more triple-digit days. Out of the 20 counties across the United States expected to experience the greatest number of days above 100 degrees annually, 16 are in Texas.

Resting in the hands of Congress is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposal for a $1.1 billion sea wall that would encapsulate about 8 miles of Charleston’s peninsula in the city that’s expected to continue to swell in population.

King County, Wash.,’s new 12-point Wildfire Risk Reduction Strategy enlists the expertise of 29 different local entities but also calls on the public and private forest landowners to do their part to mitigate wildfire risk.

Crews have been able to restore electricity to well over half of the people who lost power, but fixing all the bridges damaged or destroyed by the flooding will be expensive and more time-consuming.

Experts and officials said the ordeal offers a stark warning that the area’s storm systems and water managers must confront: The warming climate is making major downpours more common and fueling more runoff than ever.

As the 55,000-acre McKinney fire continued to burn in California’s Klamath National Forest on Monday, emergency crews encountered increasingly grim evidence of the wildfire’s extraordinary and explosive growth.

The McKinney Fire, in a Klamath Mountains subrange west of Yreka, raced across 20,000 acres overnight Saturday and had devoured 52,498 acres as of Sunday evening, the largest fire now burning in California, state and federal fire agencies said.

As the city endures — or even celebrates — several days at or above 90 degrees that could stretch into the weekend, these deviations from the region’s mild summers are predicted to become part of Seattle’s fabric.

Friday morning, firefighters, rescue-squad members, troops from the Kentucky National Guard and volunteers were searching for people in wrecked houses and along streams where the water had gone down.

On Tuesday, King County released its first-ever Wildfire Risk Reduction Strategy, a 12-point plan to bolster the region’s ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from large burns.

Across the globe, heat-trapping gases released by human activity are causing temperatures to rise and contributing to droughts, wildfires and extreme rainfall at a rate faster than scientists had predicted.

The new website includes data from multiple agencies to help public officials plan for and mitigate extreme heat events. The portal includes GIS mapping, real-time temperatures, forecasts and other data tools.

Signs of heat exhaustion include feeling faint or dizzy, excessive sweating, cool and clammy skin, nausea, a rapid weak pulse and muscle cramps. The department recommends treating heat exhaustion by moving to a cooler area.

Even large car-dependent cities like Houston and Los Angeles are serious about reducing the auto traffic on highways as these cities reimagine transit and other transportation investments.

Although not as large or destructive as the August Complex fire in 2020 or the Dixie fire in 2021, experts worry the Oak fire is the start of what could be a particularly difficult wildfire season in California.