CINCINNATI -- As detailed by outlets including Slate, Vox and The Atlantic, the flooding that devastated Houston with the arrival of Hurricane Harvey was partially a consequence of uncontrollable nature and partially one of the city's sprawling design and insufficient flood protocol.
As that city recovers, experts will no doubt set themselves to the task of creating infrastructure that can lessen the impact of future coastal storms.
Meanwhile, here in Ohio, the city of Cincinnati hopes it won't have to wait for the worst in order to get smarter about protecting itself from weather-related catastrophe.
"It's not a phenomenon," city manager Harry Black said. "It's here, and it's going to be here, so we have to get smart about it as a means of conserving our resources and mitigating impacts."
An extreme weather task force assembled in May turned in a 14-page list of recommendations for better procedure, organization and failsafes Wednesday. These recommendations cover situations ranging from calamitous flooding -- like the type that washed over Columbia-Tusculum and destabilized part of the Mt. Adams hillside -- to extreme temperatures to high-level wind and lightning.
Some of the task force's recommendations are as simple as planting more trees to help the city cope with rainwater and heat, but others are far more complex, such as requiring air conditioning in all homes and re-evaluating building codes. The total cost of the adjustments can be measured in millions of dollars.
Black, who remarked in May that Cincinnati had experienced three 100-year flood events in the span of just 12 months, said it's necessary.
"Let's be clear: There is never, ever enough money, and that's why we have to be smart, to compensate for not having all of the resources that we would like to have," he said. "The key is we have the number resource. We have brains. We can outthink this stuff."
So did East End Area Council president Patrick Ormond, whose local severe weather bugbear -- the slipping Riverside hillside -- comes with a $20 million price tag for repairs.
"We're beyond the point of climate change," Ormond said. "We're now looking at climate impact."
Read the task force's complete list of recommendations below:
Extreme Weather Task Force recommendations by WCPO Web Team on Scribd
