Big Storms Highlight Cities’ Efforts to Protect Water Systems

Catastrophic floods across Europe, Asia and parts of the U.S. in recent months have drawn public attention to how vulnerable cities and towns are often impacted by hurricanes and severe storms. 

After flood waters devastated Valencia, Spain in early November, King Felipe, Queen Letitia and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited to view the damage. Residents, furious that more than 200 people died during Spain’s worst floods in decades, pelted them with mud. 

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In Southern Germany, eight people died as historic flooding damaged homes, bridges and roads, part of a wave of damage that also hit Austria and Croatia. On the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts of the U.S., an estimated $300 billion in damage followed Hurricanes and Milton. 

The devastation included Asheville, N.C., long thought to be too far inland to take a direct hit, and where residents were still cleaning up late in the year. 

While much of the coverage of hurricanes and severe storms looks at surface damage, experts have warned for years about the dangers these weather events pose to water supplies. 

Cities around the world, including Amsterdam, Toronto, Seoul as well as many across the U.S., have launched actions to protect water systems, but the latest climate emergencies show that even more needs to be done. 

“Show me a place in the United States that is safe from flash floods,” says Andrew Kruczkeiwicz, a lecturer at the Columbia University Climate School. “They can happen nearly everywhere.”

In 2008, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared there was “abundant evidence that freshwater resources are vulnerable and have the potential to be strongly impacted by climate change, with wide-ranging consequences for human societies and ecosystems.”

In a 17-page fact sheet, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) warns that hurricanes and floods can cause a loss of system pressure, allowing groundwater to contaminate equipment, pipes and drinking water. 

It says municipalities can take a variety of actions, including elevating and relocating pump houses, installing flood proof motors in pumping stations, and increasing the storage of emergency clean water.

“Flood risk is certainly underappreciated across the nation,” says Victoria Salinas, FEMA’s senior official acting as Deputy Administrator for Resilience. “While most Americans know that flooding happens, they don’t believe it will happen to them.”

Federally funded programs have been underway for years in places such as Minot, N.D., Gastonia, N.C. and Houma, Louisiana, and Trenton, N.J., tailored to the specific threats to water in each place. But there is no one simplest and most cost-effective type of mitigation, FEMA says.

Meanwhile, the cost of storms is rising. By late 2024, the agency distributed more than $1.2 billion in direct assistance to survivors of the Helene and Milton hurricanes, with another $1.1 billion allocated for debris removal and other measures. 

In Helene’s wake, Western North Carolina’s water systems were devastated. Two water treatment plants were knocked offline, after being swept with stormwater. The storm cut off 70% of Asheville’s water supply, and more than 40% of private wells were declared undrinkable. 

World Central Kitchen, the charity founded by chef Jose Andres, sent five tanker trucks of water to the Asheville area. Mules were used to lug water and food to isolated mountain areas. 

During Hurricane Milton, 30 water mains in St. Petersburg, Florida, broke, mainly due to falling trees. A dozen municipalities across Florida enacted boil water advisories. 

A similar storm 70 years ago launched Toronto’s efforts to mitigate flood damage. In 1954, Hurricane Hazel swept north from the Bahamas, through Virginia and New York State, and slammed into Ontario, dumping more than 11 inches of rain on Canada’s largest city. 

Most bridges on Toronto’s west side were destroyed, 81 Torontonians died, and thousands of people lost their homes. 

That prompted a decades-long effort that includes shifting development away from flood plains, creating green spaces where destroyed houses once stood, floodwater containment efforts and enhanced flood warning and forecasting systems. 

“What people experience really drives action,” says David Kellershohn, associate director of engineering services for the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.

These days, Toronto is rarely affected by hurricanes. But it increasingly experiences strong rains. This July was its rainiest month in history, with nearly 8.5 inches. One mid-July storm led to an estimated $940 million in insured damage, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. In August, Toronto set a new single-day rain record that closed freeway lanes and stranded cars. 

Experts say that more communication is needed to alert the public of everyday dangers caused by hurricanes and sudden storms. “People have a sense of floods happening in a certain place—the water overflows, and it floods,” says Kruczkeiwicz at Columbia University. 

But it happens everywhere. In July, the southern coast of South Korea was slammed by heavy rain, killing four, causing landslide warnings in nearly 50 places, and resulting in the evacuation of 3,500 people. Officials urged residents to avoid underground parking garages and freeway underpasses, for fear of becoming trapped. 

That storm came two years after Seoul suffered its own deluge, leading the city to begin flood controls, focusing on apartment buildings and subway stations. It is constructing underground rainwater storage areas as well as a forecast and alert system when floods are likely. 

With extensive information now available to its residents, officials in the Toronto area hope the devastating impact of a historic storm like Hazel will never repeat, even though modern storms might bring similar levels of rain.“Our ability to warn people of the risk and help them to stay away from the risk is much greater,” says Kellershohn.