HOUSTON (AP) 鈥� Sharon Carr is frustrated. Like many others who lost power after Hurricane Beryl earlier this week, she went to a cooling center in Houston to get relief from summer heat while the city's warned that restoring everyone's electricity than they might hope.
鈥淭here鈥檚 too much wind, we don鈥檛 have power. It鈥檚 raining a long time, we don鈥檛 have power,鈥� said Carr, who also went when a destructive storm known as a derecho swept through the area.
Carr, who works for the city's transportation and drainage department, thinks more could be done to keep the lights on 鈥� or at least restore them more quickly 鈥� if Houston and other urban areas prone to severe weather would stop focusing on immediate problems and look at the bigger picture, including climate change.
鈥淭his shouldn鈥檛 keep happening," she said. "If it鈥檚 broke, let鈥檚 fix it.鈥�
Hurricane Beryl is the latest in a long line of devastating storms to paralyze Houston, underscoring the city鈥檚 inability to sufficiently fortify itself against weather events brought on by climate change. Past storms such as Hurricane Ike in 2008 and Harvey in 2017 made clear that the city needed to remove trees, bolster its flood-plain protections and bury more power lines underground, but those efforts fell short or were completely overwhelmed by recent storms that have inundated the city and knocked out power to millions.
With climate change heating up ocean water, fueling storms that are more powerful and intensify much faster, experts say cities need to rethink how they prepare and respond to such events.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a totally different game that we鈥檙e playing today,鈥� said Michelle Meyer, director of the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center at Texas A&M University. The old playbook, she said, 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 work anymore.鈥�
If we rebuild it, it will flood again
Where and how developers build is one obvious issue, said Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Barack Obama. He said that became evident to him 20 years ago while working in Florida, where four successive hurricanes were not enough to stop beachfront development.
鈥淵ou've got to ask yourself, how many times do we need to rebuild something before we either build it back differently or we don鈥檛 build back in that same spot?鈥� he said.
Fugate thinks taxpayers are increasingly shouldering the burden, supporting expensive insurance programs for at-risk areas when instead, developers could stop building in storm-prone areas and residents could move out of the floodplains.
鈥淚t is the hardest system to implement because people resist," said Jim Blackburn, co-director of the severe storm center at Rice University. 鈥淧eople really like where they live, as a general proposition.鈥�
Buyouts instead of insurance payments are one way to get people to move, but Fugate notes such programs often take too long to kick in after a storm hits. By the time such funds are ready, persuading someone to take a buyout is 鈥渁lmost impossible,鈥� he said.
Problems with known solutions
In many cases, officials know what actions are needed to mitigate severe weather disasters, but find them hard to implement.
For instance, the city of Houston documenting how falling trees caused power outages after 2008鈥檚 Hurricane Ike. But no one wanted to cut down the trees that still stood. Today, utility officials note, they install underground electric lines for every new construction project.
Updating the city鈥檚 electrical infrastructure could also go a long way toward preventing power outages, Meyer said, noting that North Carolina did so after Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
鈥淭hey were really forward-thinking, like, 鈥極K we鈥檙e not going to be in this situation again,鈥欌�� she said.
CenterPoint Energy, which provides Houston's power, has partially installed an 鈥渋ntelligent grid鈥� system that automatically reroutes power to unaffected lines during an outage. A document on the utility鈥檚 website noted that 996 of the devices had been installed as of 2019 鈥� less than half of the grid at the time. It's not clear if more progress has been made since then. The company did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
A changing reality
With more storms like Beryl expected under climate change conditions, cities have to plan for the worst 鈥� and the worst is getting nastier.
鈥淚t鈥檚 all about learning to live with water,鈥� Blackburn said.
After Hurricane Harvey 鈥� the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade when it slammed into the Texas coast in August 2017 鈥� Houston passed a $2.5 billion bond measure to finance flood damage reduction projects in Harris County, which includes the city. The action resulted in 鈥渁 lot of improvements,鈥� Blackburn said, but was based on old flood projections.
In addition, a task force Republican Gov. Greg Abbott created in 2018 made dozens of recommendations in a nearly 200-page report, including investigating ways to harden utilities and creating an inventory of mitigation and resiliency projects that are needed across the state.
But with weather becoming more and more unpredictable, even cities that make improvements can be caught unprepared if they don鈥檛 plan with the future in mind. The 鈥渄iabolical鈥� component of climate change, Blackburn said, is that the goalposts keep moving: Just as cities adjust to a heightened risk, the risk escalates again.
Scientists are more equipped than ever before to make decisions about evacuations, development and other measures using computer systems that can predict the damage a certain storm will inflict, noted Shane Hubbard, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin.
And yet, he added, all the computing power in the world can鈥檛 match the unpredictability of climate change. Warming oceans are driving rapidly intensifying weather events that defy models and quickly change conditions on the ground.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the thing I鈥檓 most concerned about" in the future, Hubbard said.
Complicating matters in Texas is that some leaders still don't acknowledge climate change. The report issued by the governor's task force in 2018 noted that powerful natural disasters in Texas would become more frequent because of a changing climate. But it made no mention of 鈥渃limate change,鈥� 鈥済lobal warming鈥� or of curbing greenhouse gases in Texas, the nation鈥檚 oil-refining epicenter that leads the U.S. in carbon emissions. Texas is a state where politicians, at least publicly, about climate change.
Cities must be willing to face the scientific facts before their planning can truly improve, Blackburn says.
Asked whether coastal cities in general are prepared for climate change, Meyer said simply, 鈥淣o.鈥�
She said prevention and mitigation measures must evolve to the point that a Category 1 hurricane 鈥渨ill be no problem moving forward.鈥�
A city like Houston 鈥渟hould not be touched by a Cat 1,鈥� she said.
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Walling reported from Chicago. Associated Press/Report for America writer Nadia Lathan in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report. Follow Walling on X:
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The Associated Press鈥� climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP鈥檚 for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at .
Melina Walling And Juan A. Lozano, The Associated Press
