AMU Cyber & AI Emergency Management Homeland Security Opinion Public Safety

In Future, Extreme Weather Fluctuations May Cripple Critical Infrastructure

Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Contributor for In Homeland Security

Untold damage awaits the unprepared in the global climate changing process. For those cities and countries that are not anticipating life-threatening weather fluctuations, including but not limited to tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and extreme temperatures, the casualties will be devastating. One morning might be warm and cozy and the afternoon below zero degrees Celsius. Such a scenario is possible in an unstable climate system.

For too long, humans have literally enjoyed the golden years of climate stability and good weather. Seasonal extremes, rising ocean levels and solar flares, severe cold storms, wildfires, droughts, coastal floods, flash floods, storm surges, astronomical tides and so forth. The US has become efficient at extreme weather crisis response but not preparedness. Thus it remains highly vulnerable not only to present seasonal weather fluctuations but coming distortions as well.

The modern and common state infrastructure is set up to handle seasonal and predictable weather patterns. More sophisticated climatological and meteorological programs attempt to track chaotic systems with greater accuracy but are constantly denied success in local zones with hourly, daily and weekly surprises. All common consequential effects include: power outages, extensive crop and animal husbandry related damage, commercial and residence damage, work and school delays, casualties, costs, etc.

In more extreme events, weather can devastate an entire city, state or region, putting them out for weeks with rescue missions, shelter and aid; reconstruction and excessive longer-term industry damage, deaths and costs. Again, the preparedness in this country is there, but not the infrastructure protection at the local levels.

What we are not prepared for:

A modern city is designed and dependent on power, the inordinate access to industry specializations, communications and transportation. In inclement weather these are in temporary jeopardy, unless power lines, for example, are buried. However, with extreme events, this infrastructure of power lines, communication and roads can virtual wipe out man’s attempts to depart from nature, function, feed or just survive.

Can we remove the present vulnerabilities or minimize the extent of unexpected weather related damage?

This can only originate from strategy, contingency planning and innovative new municipal and industrial infrastructure. Just because a storm may cripple a city, food must continue to flow, but if a drought affects the farms and there are no crops and then a wicked storm prevents distant or foreign supply- just as effective as an enemy’s military; and there may be less hope of even the very basics.

In normal times long past, we enjoyed more predictable and clement weather. It was only a matter of one event at a time- even for the worst of them. But rapidly changing fluctuations call for greater diversity and innovation in urban and agrarian regions alike.

A few major changes will be much more costly; however, with new technology and materials, the costs might be reduced greatly over time. There may also be back up systems or portions of crops that are required to grow from green houses in certain areas, etc. Additionally, for public safety, public underground facilities might protect from tornadoes and hardened materials might be plastered on the walls of buildings and homes in harm’s way. More radically, whole underwater cities or shelters might be placed off of coasts; residents on islands and coastal regions might one day have cars with submersible potential and oxygen tanks. Hardened public shelters along with alternative ways of harvesting energy and water from storms could be coming soon.

It is uncertain if this is the next biggest threat. If this article was written ten years ago, it would have no place at all. But now, there is the scratching of the head as people look out their window and see warm weather where snow should be or vice versa.

During the Cold War, people were overprotective and they built fallout shelters during crises and wars- their hope to be secure in case of a nuclear winter. Fortunately, this never happened and a better alternate future emerged.

Some coastal areas prone to heavy hurricanes or tornado troubled regions are likely to remain bad or get worse; at least in the short term. Other areas will of course be affected too- all of them to varying degrees (e.g. temperature extremes). However, in the areas of known high inclement weather activity, it would behoove states to act in building public storm/ tornado shelters that can withstand a much higher rating of magnitude than the present as it is better to be over-prepared than unprepared. And even if nothing changes, they will be protected from bad storms, should they be caught out in the open or locked into traffic- now having access to a place of safety.

It may not be time to build a society that is prepared for natural calamity. Awareness will be the first hurdle. People go about their daily lives ignoring the weather changes of last year, last week or yesterday. Things are changing or they are unstable. Most people do not even stock their pantries with enough food for three days or for their neighbor who may have nothing at all in a severe weather crisis. How many have an emergency blanket or a heater in their car? A more prepared public will be a benefit to their safety without going to extremes and preparing for Armageddon.

Secondly, a more prepared and innovative government and public infrastructure is needed. Once people are made aware of the reality of their state and their personal experiences of weather perturbations become common, they may either accept it as trouble or as an apathetic norm. Regardless, they must also know what to do in a storm and have techniques in hand and mind.

The truth is that there is much that the modern civilization can and must do to maintain their social and technological progress- keeping even the simplest of things we now take for granted in operation. As the world becomes faster and more demanding, a small disruption will have a much more severe consequence.

Small steps of redesigning modern infrastructure with this now in mind are better investments than starting with grand projects or building arks; all of them, at this point, are not needed and may in the future be unnecessary. Nevertheless, those small steps in creating strongholds and preparing a more durable and advanced public system, the protection will outweigh the costs over time. As for right now, the patterns can tell us which areas are the heaviest hit. For those, simply initiating measures to prevent more extreme weather is needed. This will not of course protect us from the unusual weather to come but it will start us off in the right direction.

Lastly, unless new ways are invented to protect an island nation from annihilation or a national park from burning to the ground, or a drought from generating a super famine or a tornado from destroying the city yet again, such things will not only find possible ethno-national extinction level events but diminish production and global advancement of human civilization. We must remember that ice-ages and extreme weather patterns are a part of history as much as they are a part of the future.

*This article is not a debate in support or against any global warming trend or any other trend in particular. It is about statistically supported changing states of climate and their consequences, not their causes.

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