Original subtitles

Unprecedented devastation.

By Friday morning they started using the word "catastrophic."

Three monster hurricanes in a single month.

Harvey.

Irma.

Maria.

If you're told to evacuate, get out quickly.

They strike violently-- scouring the land.

We saw winds in excess of 190 miles per hour.

The eye was right here on top of us.

Leaving devastation

and thousands stranded in their wake.

Today the focus is on rescue.

Houston, the nation's fourth largest city,

is underwater.

You know that people are facing really catastrophic situations.

They may be fighting for their lives.

Islands like Puerto Rico

and nations of the Caribbean are ravaged.

The entire country has been decimated.

I have never seen anything like this before.

The Florida Keys are in shambles.

What explains one of the most disastrous hurricane seasons

on record?

Why did the strength of these storms take so many by surprise?

Could a warming planet be driving the weather

to new extremes?

Are storms of this intensity the new "normal"?

And how will we cope?

Many organizations talk about climate refugees.

2017 Atlantic hurricane season may have ushered in that era.

For the survivors, life may never be the same.

This is unreal!

Here was the living room right here.

- I - couldn't believe what was happening to us.

We lost everything.

Everything!

"Rise of the Superstorms,"

right now, on "NOVA."

A Houston neighborhood devastated.

State Troopers, anybody here?

The terrible aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

State Troopers!

Anybody here?

Now, rescue workers search for trapped residents.

We're going to go here and knock on the door.

All right.

State Troopers!

In 2017

three monster hurricanes strike the U.S.

in rapid succession.

Harvey.

Houston under water, the nation's fourth largest city.

Irma.

Much of Florida,

extreme rains, storm surge flooding.

And Maria.

In Puerto Rico,

their second heaviest rainfall on record.

They bring

life-threatening destruction to millions in their path.

I've got 18 people I'm trying to get out.

It's an unprecedented onslaught that breaks records

with powerful winds

and especially water.

Water is going to be

part of our future, both on the rivers,

at the oceans.

We need to be using the best science we have

to prepare ourselves for our "Waterworld" future.

While we scramble to rebuild

following one of the most harrowing hurricane seasons

on record,

scientists,

policy makers,

and citizens are asking,

"Is this our future?

"And if so, how can we get ready

with the next season already upon us?"

It's August 2017,

midway through the Atlantic hurricane season.

So far, it's been fairly quiet.

But that's about to end.

There's a weather disturbance developing in the Atlantic,

and it's moving steadily westward.

A storm starts off in a reasonably simple way.

You need some warm surface temperatures,

and that will give the air near the surface

an initial trigger to start rising.

On August 17,

the system grows in strength, becoming a tropical storm.

It's given a name,

which will not soon be forgotten: Harvey.

Harvey loses strength and a few days later,

crosses the Yucatán Peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico.

There's the storm, it is very disorganized.

But meteorologists at the National Weather Service

predict that as the storm moves into the warm Gulf waters...

Remember, tropical systems just feed

off of that warmer water.

...Harvey will strengthen

and hit Texas within a few days.

If you are just waking up and tuning in,

we're now just dealing with a tropical storm,

we'll probably be dealing with a hurricane.

A hurricane,

but only a relatively weak one, Category One.

However, it is expected to bring at least ten inches of rain

and some flooding.

On the Gulf coast of Texas,

residents prepare for a bad,

but not catastrophic storm.

Water, canned goods, some fruit,

lots of pouches for my little boy to eat,

so just trying to be prepared.

But then Harvey takes a dramatic turn.

Well, it has changed.

And it is bigger.

In just a matter of hours,

Harvey rapidly increases in strength.

Now, with the storm just 300 miles offshore,

forecasters quickly change gears.

A few hours ago, this was going to be a Category One.

Now we're looking at a Category Three.

They predict Harvey will be a dangerous major hurricane

with winds up to 125 miles an hour.

We haven't seen anything like that along this coast

for at least 47 years, this part of Texas.

A major hurricane with big flooding, surge, wind,

and a lot of damage.

As Texas officials prepare to face

this rapidly evolving monster

wind engineer Forrest Masters

recognizes a good opportunity to gather data.

We've been there for every major event that's happened,

all the major storms you can think of,

from Katrina to Sandy.

We've been in about 30 storms conducting experiments.

He immediately travels from Florida

to Texas to meet the storm.

Along with a team of engineers,

he sets up a 5,000-pound wind tower

to measure the speed and direction

of wind close to the ground--

one of the least understood components of violent storms.

We can haul these anywhere we need to

and set them up in the span of 30 minutes.

They have different levels of anemometry,

which are precision wind instruments.

They take measurements ten times per second.

Masters thinks that having better wind speed data

at ground level--

taken during the most powerful storms--

can help in the design of more resilient buildings.

Harvey perfectly fits the bill.

As it nears land, it reaches Category Four out of five

on the standard hurricane wind scale.

Once we get at three or above,

we're in the major hurricane territory.

That's when things get very serious,

because we see the likelihood of windborne debris happening.

And ultimately, when we work our way up to a Category Five,

we're testing the limits of the infrastructure.

On the morning of August 25,

Harvey is moving towards Corpus Christi on the coast.

Local officials issue mandatory evacuations,

ordering several thousand coastal residents

to move inland.

Many people in Corpus Christi are getting out,

taking the city up on an offer to leave town for free.

Hundreds of people boarded school buses

headed for an evacuation center in San Antonio.

About 200 miles farther up the coast is Houston.

Even though the storm is still to the south--

it's so big, it will definitely have an impact on the city.

But there's no evacuation order,

in part because of a painful experience

during a previous major hurricane.

In 2005, when Hurricane Rita was bearing down on Houston--

officials ordered an evacuation

several days in advance of landfall.

Millions took to the highways.

In the massive traffic jams, cars ran out of gas,

stranding thousands in 100-degree heat.

In the end, more people died while attempting to flee

than while hunkering down.

That memory is still fresh.

So officials don't order a mass evacuation.

Millions of Houston residents prepare to shelter in place.

At this time,

there will be no mass evacuations called.

We'll have a lot of water,

but it's not the kind of water

that we would ask people to evacuate from.

While residents anxiously await landfall

of what is now expected to be a Category Four hurricane,

the winds suddenly intensify even further--

reaching sustained winds of 130 miles an hour.

Our biggest concern with hurricane forecasting

is rapid intensification right as the storm is making landfall.

Hurricane Harvey was an extremely dangerous storm

in that regard,

because in the last 30 hours,

it increased by 50 mile per hours in its winds.

People along the shore need to leave.

You need to be gone.

It's not a Cat One anymore, this is a Category Four,

130, 135-mile-per-hour storm.

Just before 10:00 p.m.,

about four miles east of Rockport, Texas,

Hurricane Harvey makes landfall.

Oh, man, that vehicle is going to be gone!

We prayed a lot, talked a lot.

We kept ourselves busy, we played cards.

We could see things flying everywhere.

Fences were coming down,

things were flying all over the place.

As predicted, when it comes ashore,

Harvey's sustained wind speeds hold at 130 miles an hour--

making it the first Category Four storm

to strike the U.S. in 13 years.

The eye passes directly over Rockport, Texas,

about 150 miles from Houston.

We came outside,

we looked up, and it was a clear sky,

was nothing but stars, that was the eye.

Not even two seconds after we shut the door,

it started all over again.

The eye was on top of Rockport-- I mean, it was right here.

The eye was right here.

Lining the eye is the hurricane's eye wall--

where the winds are strongest.

Anyone in the eye's path gets hit twice

by the super-charged eye wall winds--

first as the storm approaches,

and then again as it departs.

In 20 years of hurricane research,

Forrest Masters has seldom seen such a powerful storm.

We measured some of the highest winds we've ever recorded.

We saw winds in excess of 190 miles per hour.

In a matter of hours, Rockport is left in pieces.

We underestimated the power and the force behind this hurricane.

It just went right through and just devoured everything.

It's just devastating.

Much of Rockport is flattened by Harvey's powerful winds.

But having spent much of its energy over land,

the storm quickly weakens--

from a Category Four hurricane

into a tropical storm

maintaining winds of about 45 miles an hour.

But wind speed is not the only measure

of a storm's destructive power.

This category number

really just relates to the maximum sustained wind speeds.

But the category system tells us nothing

about flood potential as far as storm surge and heavy rain.

The heavy rains were just beginning.

Even though wind speeds are now much less hazardous,

residents are far from safe.

Harvey drifts east and stalls.

Conflicting winds in the upper atmosphere pin it in place.

We have a high pressure

to the east and a high pressure to the west,

and there's nothing in the middle to move it away.

Warm ocean water keeps the storm alive.

The heat evaporates moisture into clouds

only to be dumped in record amounts as rain.

This storm was essentially just pumping water vapor,

turning it into liquid, and dropping it on Texas.

At the same time,

the sustained winds blowing onshore

push ocean water inland--

potentially creating a six-to-12-foot storm surge.

With the addition of heavy rains,

widespread flooding is inevitable.

Many of our best computer models showed that Hurricane Harvey

was indeed going to be a one-two punch.

This thing was going to linger

for days as a tropical storm

and produce rainfall amounts

that would lead to significant and life-changing flooding.

Any hurricane that puts down ten inches of rain

in one spot is going to make flooding.

The forecast here is 30 to 50.

30 to 50 inches of rain--

a deluge that goes on and on.

Rainfall totals surpass existing records.

The National Weather Service introduces a new shade

of purple on their rainfall maps--

to indicate the more than 30 inches

of record-breaking rain Harvey drops on the region.

As the rain falls, storm surge compounds the problem.

It lowered the efficiency of the rainfall runoff.

So where was this 30, 40 inches of rain going to drain?

Harvey's total inundation of rainfall

plus wind-driven storm surge on top of the tides

creates a slow-motion catastrophe.

Already, the rivers, reservoirs, and bayous

of Houston's Harris County,

the third most populous in the country,

are at record levels.

And waters continue to rise for several more days.

There's almost a level of despair there.

You know that people are facing really catastrophic situations,

and if they didn't get out,

they may be fighting for their lives.

This could be one of the worst flooding events

in American history.

The city of Houston,

we're going to do everything we can to assist people,

get them off the roof, get them out the attic,

get them out of the home.

So today the focus is on rescue.

I'm sorry!

No, no, don't be sorry.

As part of the federal response,

the U.S. Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue Team

finds people swept away in floodwaters,

their homes and cars no longer safe.

Here, we're going to put the life vest on you.

Okay.

All right, try to climb in this.

I'll push you up, all right?

Okay. One, two, three!

The water's moving so rapidly,

it takes about ten people to haul in the victim,

fighting the current.

You okay?

Are you hurt? You injured?

No.

Let me take your life jacket.

For most of this area,

25 inches of rain is a massive flood event.

To have 50, and there's even been a report

of 60 inches of rain is just beyond our comprehension.

It's beyond anything

that we could've really dealt with.

Then it becomes an issue

of what's the best way to triage a disaster.

Now, the National Guard and other government agencies

conduct 13,000 rescues--

over thousands of square miles.

The sheer volume of rainwater fallen

is enough to fill the Houston Astrodome 85,000 times.

And the flood is slow to retreat--

the result of Houston's extensive,

and some think unchecked, development.

Ecologist Erin Kinney has found that over 500 square miles

of Houston's Harris County

is covered by impervious surfaces

that don't absorb water.

As Houston and the surrounding area expanded,

it has done so often at the expense of natural lands.

And it has resulted

in the loss of acres and acres

of freshwater wetlands.

Things like asphalt and concrete

are not meant to have water percolate through them.

Yeah, I grew up around here.

There's a tennis court

that's eight feet under water.

Our parking lots, our driveways,

the strip malls, our highways.

Those are all impervious surfaces.

Natural vegetation is so much more efficient

at not only allowing that water to absorb

but also filtering it as it goes.

It filters out the microscopic viruses and the bacteria.

That filtering capacity is really what I think

is the unseen power of a wetland.

But the flooding isn't just a problem in Houston.

The storm leaves a massive footprint.

A hundred miles northeast,

Lumberton, Texas, receives a record-setting

48 inches of rain.

It's one of the worst hit.

But it's not alone.

And because the number of flooded areas is so large,

the federal relief effort is stretched thin.

Residents here are mostly managing on their own,

conducting search and rescue.

Jerry Haire-- "Snuffy" to his friends--

lives near the Pine Island Bayou,

which flooded over its banks,

even damaging homes built on stilts

to stand above the water.

Gary Arnold lives a few hundred miles away,

but rushed to Lumberton

to help his friend rescue neighbors

and ferry them to safety.

We were taking people back and forth

from one side to the other

to go get their medicines at the store.

We were taking MREs back and forth to people.

Some of them didn't have no place to go.

Some of them's older people, didn't have no family.

And some of them just didn't want to leave their home,

because they were scared that they would get throwed in

with a bunch of people somewhere,

and just be, you know, whatever--

robbed, raped, killed.

I mean, you don't never know.

It's just a bad deal.

This is these people's backyards.

Be careful stepping in that water for real.

What could happen to me?

You could get MRSA, you could get typhoid,

you could get... um, what's that other stuff?

What else they say is in that water, Snuffy?

E. coli.

And there's no telling what other chemicals are in here.

Because, I mean,

fertilizer plants blew up upstream.

All this water's coming from that direction.

So just think about that.

That's a sad deal.

The sheer power of inundating water

upends houses, trees, and even cars.

Somebody was probably driving down that road,

and the water forced, forced it over here to where it's at.

Experts begin calling Harvey a 500-year storm--

meaning it has a one in 500 probability

of happening in a given year.

Yet, in the past three years,

the Houston area has experienced three 500-year storms.

Altogether, it takes about five days

for the storm to blow itself out,

and the clean-up will take much, much longer.

Because it's not just water that gets carried.

It's viruses and bacteria

that are floating around in people's homes.

And the rescue workers are walking around in that.

We're going to be dealing with the aftermath

of those floodwaters for years.

But this hellish hurricane season is far from over.

Six days after Harvey hit,

while much of southeast Texas remains underwater,

a new hurricane out in the Atlantic-- Irma-- forms

and intensifies rapidly.

It went from a Category Three hurricane

with 120-mile-per-hour winds

to a Category Five with 175-mile-per-hour winds

in just 30 hours.

Irma continues moving westward.

It's heading across unusually warm waters--

fuel for hurricanes-- giving it the potential

to develop into a monstrous storm.

The island of Barbuda

is first to feel the force of Irma.

Winds up to 185 miles an hour

grind across the 62 square-mile island,

leaving 90% of properties damaged.

All communication with the outside world is cut off.

The prime minister declares the island uninhabitable.

We just did a fly-over,

and I have to tell you my heart sunk.

This has been one of the worst days of my life.

The entire country has been decimated.

I have never seen anything like this before.

The powerful onslaught continues.

Irma hits St. Martin and then the British Virgin Islands.

Both suffer extensive damage.

For these islands,

it is one of the worst hurricanes in modern history.

This storm is so unusual,

because it stayed strong for so very long.

Irma maintains top winds of 180 miles an hour

for 18 hours.

And now, it may be headed for Florida.

All the computers modelling this storm agree.

It will take a northward turn,

pushed by high-altitude wind currents,

but they disagree about exactly when and where

it will change direction.

One model has it going up the east coast, grazing Daytona.

The other has it going into the Gulf of Mexico,

and then the next run, they switch.

Where is this thing really going to go?

We can't evacuate the entire state of Florida.

Because of the Florida peninsula's narrow geography,

every coastal city--

whether on the Atlantic side or the Gulf side--

faces potential flooding from a storm this massive.

Florida's not a wide state,

and the east coast and west coast aren't that far apart

in terms of our understanding and our ability to predict.

If this does hit Florida,

because the arms of this storm are so big,

it's going to hit both sides.

So whether it goes on the east side of the state

or the left side of state or right up the middle,

the entire state of Florida is going to see damage.

Miami is already prone to flooding.

If Irma strikes the city directly,

the storm surge there could be devastating.

But Miami isn't the only major population center at risk.

Cities on the west coast, like Tampa,

also have very little defense

against a possible eight-foot storm surge,

which could take out billions of dollars of coastal development

and put thousands of lives at risk.

When faced with a superstorm like Irma,

small changes to the hurricane's path

can result in dramatically different outcomes.

To hone the prediction, more measurements

of temperature, pressure, humidity,

and wind speed are needed.

These come from satellites,

buoys,

ships,

and ground-based weather stations.

And also from rugged aircraft

that fly directly into the storm,

like this P-3 Hurricane Hunter

penetrating Hurricane Irma's eye wall,

with scientists onboard.

That's the most intense part of the hurricane,

that's where the strongest winds are and the greatest turbulence.

It gets immediately dark,

because you're surrounded by clouds.

The rain starts to stream off the windows.

They've got a lot of instruments on the fuselage of the aircraft,

so as they fly through the storm,

they're taking measurements

of the pressure, winds, temperature, and humidity.

Also, they have instruments called dropsondes

and they're little packages that fall down through the storm

on parachutes and radio back as they fall.

And a Hurricane Hunter aircraft

will typically drop maybe 20 of those,

sending back data for about a 15-minute period

till they splash in the ocean.

We fly what's called a figure four,

where you fly to the periphery,

and then you chop through at right angles

to the last pass you did,

because you want to sample all four quadrants of the hurricane

to find out, you know,

what are the winds in all four areas?

Measurements collected in the storm

reach supercomputer centers in the U.S. and the U.K.

There, the data flows into numerical models

that generate forecasts for Irma.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts,

in England,

uses some of the fastest computers on earth

to output what are regarded as the most accurate models

of a hurricane's path.

So this is Ventus, one of our two supercomputers.

And inside this machine,

we process approximately 100 million observations every hour.

So this machine has to be incredibly powerful.

Equivalent to 100,000 desktop computers.

These massive number-crunching computers

predict the future weather for any point on the globe.

Right now, they're figuring out where Irma is headed.

We have a set of grid points around the globe, 500 million.

And at each of those grid points,

we solve the equations

that tell us what the winds are doing at those points,

what the temperature is doing, what the humidity is doing.

As Irma approaches Florida,

the solutions to all those equations

result in a forecast of Irma's track,

which is updated every six hours.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami

analyzes the output of the computer models

to issue its official storm warnings.

They have Irma hitting somewhere in Florida in just three days.

But the models have not yet nailed down

where it will make landfall--

a crucial determinant of damage.

Now, just 250 miles from the Florida Keys,

Irma hits Cuba--

the first Category Five hurricane

to make landfall there since 1924.

It's a disaster for the island and its residents,

but as it crosses land, it loses strength--

which is good news for Florida.

The land interaction that Irma had with Cuba

took about 25 miles per hour off the storm.

Cuba did a huge favor for Florida,

because if Irma had not hit Cuba,

passed maybe just 20 miles to the north of where it did,

I'm convinced that

it would have been a Category Five hitting Florida

and would have caused

just unbelievable catastrophic damage there.

As Cuba takes the brunt of the storm,

Irma leaves $13 billion in damage

and ten dead in its wake.

100 miles to the north,

Florida is now under a state of emergency,

with mandatory evacuations for the Keys and Miami.

The last catastrophic hurricane to hit Miami was Andrew,

a Category Five storm, 25 years earlier.

The extreme damage was concentrated

between the Keys and Miami,

leaving dozens of people dead,

and more than 160,000 homeless.

That's why residents are so anxious

to know where Irma will make landfall.

All the models are considered

to make a forecast of Irma's track.

But there is uncertainty that is represented in a cone.

The cone covers the area where Irma will most probably go--

and it gets wider the further out in time.

So two days out-- with a hurricane 400 miles wide

and the width of the Florida peninsula less than that--

it shows everyone could be in danger.

As a consequence, those in the most vulnerable areas,

some six to seven million people,

have been urged to evacuate.

You look at the roads,

it's an evacuation all the way up.

The storm's going all the way up.

No matter where you are, you're going to get hit,

unless you're out past, like, Tennessee or something.

I have a five-gallon can sitting in the trunk.

I've got some gas still in the car,

but not enough to try

and outrun a Category Four or Five storm.

Forget it.

Do not sit and wait for this storm to come.

It is extremely dangerous and deadly

and will cause devastation.

Do not ignore evacuation orders.

Remember, we can rebuild your home,

but we cannot rebuild your life.

We're full, but we don't turn anyone away.

We're serving three meals a day,

right now we're wrapping up with breakfast.

We have around 500 people here,

and so far so good.

Our biggest concerns would be food supplies

and also later in the evening,

when we are hunkering down,

people who might need medical support

or any type of 911 situations.

If you're near the water, if you're in the Keys,

you need to leave now.

One thing all the models agree on--

the Florida Keys are right in the path of destruction.

Irma makes landfall at 9:10 a.m. on September 10

at Cudjoe Key, Florida, with 130-mile-an-hour winds.

Storm surge engulfs entire neighborhoods.

Thousands of homes are wrecked.

There is no way these islands--

just a few feet above sea level--

can be protected.

After hitting the Keys, Irma heads towards the mainland,

making landfall at Marco Island and Naples,

which are lashed by the eye wall's most intense winds,

ripping into infrastructure like a giant on a rampage.

The wind just tore that sign down.

And that wreckage is going to become airborne missiles

when the core of the hurricane arrives.

Landfall here spares Miami and eastern Florida

much of the worst.

But Irma is still a dangerous storm

as it tears into the Everglades

and continues up the west coast.

Those directly in the storm's path

take the most severe wind damage, as expected.

But it's the location of the greatest flood damage

that is surprising.

For example,

Irma leaves Tampa unexpectedly dry,

but drowns parts of Jacksonville under five feet of water.

It's a tough problem.

Storm surges brought by hurricanes

are notoriously difficult to predict.

Much depends on the exact strength

and direction of winds blowing onshore,

as well as how they interact with the landscape--

and even the rhythm of local tides.

Sudden changes in any of the variables

can quickly render a prediction useless.

Irma is a case study

in how tricky it can be to issue a timely forecast

for a densely settled coastal area--

where lives and property are at stake.

Though Irma's impact is not as severe as some anticipated,

the hurricane exacts a heavy price.

Some 40 people die in the Caribbean,

and at least 80 in Florida.

Most in the hardest hit area-- the Keys.

Total devastation.

All we've got left is a pile of rubble.

Howlin' winds, sideways rain, tornadoes dropping down.

Everything going haywire.

Water about eight, ten foot deep.

May I dump some water down the back of your neck?

Nobody knows in my family if I'm alive or dead,

and there's quite a few people that passed away in the storm.

Oh, my God.

Thank God we have this.

If we didn't have this and those MREs,

we wouldn't eat, because there's no grocery stores open.

There's nothing that's going to be open in the near future.

They're devastated too.

And thank God the Army came in.

It could have been worse

had there not been a timely evacuation order

for the Keys and other vulnerable areas.

But on the mainland,

why was it so difficult to precisely predict landfall?

The nature of the problem is

that it is a fundamentally chaotic system, our atmosphere,

so that we will always maybe be one step behind

our last mistake.

But as long as we learn from that mistake, it's okay.

Improving both track and intensity predictions

is of utmost importance

if we are to face more seasons like 2017--

already one of the most destructive on record,

and now, with the arrival

of a storm named Maria, not yet over.

Like Harvey and Irma before it, Maria rapidly intensifies.

It went from a tropical depression

to a Category Five hurricane in just 54 hours.

Maria is now

one of most rapidly intensifying hurricanes on record.

Rapid intensification

of the three major storms to hit the U.S. in 2017

has taken forecasters by surprise,

primarily because it's so difficult

to take measurements deep inside a hurricane--

just above the surface of the ocean--

where atmospheric conditions have a powerful influence

on a storm's ferocity.

What is critical for determining the energy transfer

from the ocean to the atmosphere,

which is what drives the hurricane,

is not only the sea surface temperature

but the atmospheric temperature right above it.

In a powerful hurricane,

that's a dangerous no-go zone for a ship or plane.

But not for a drone.

The NOAA Hurricane Research Division

is testing an unmanned aerial system

that we can deploy from the plane.

This is called the Coyote.

It can sustain flight for about an hour.

And the idea is to do as much sampling at low altitude,

where we will not fly the manned aircraft,

to get humidity measurements

that are driving the energy exchange.

Deployed at a high altitude

by a Hurricane Hunter aircraft,

a Coyote can fly in the powerful winds above the sea surface

and radio back continuous measurements.

All models agree.

Maria, now a Category Five, is on a collision course

with the island nation of Dominica.

As it passes over,

it leaves in its wake

one of the worst natural disasters

ever to hit the island.

But Maria's not finished.

So what we have now is a Category Four,

or maybe even a Five,

heading right toward Puerto Rico.

Two days later, the storm barrels into Puerto Rico.

It's the second strongest hurricane to hit the island

in recorded history.

The worst Atlantic seasons on record

have only seen one Category Four or Five hurricane

hit U.S. territory.

Incredibly, this is now the third monster storm

to make landfall in 2017.

Maria hits on the southeast corner of the island,

where storm chaser, Josh Morgerman,

has come to film.

Okay, my neighbors' windows broke.

He's holed up in a hotel there,

where locals have also sought shelter.

Can you guys open the door?

Their windows have been blown out&

Can you open it?

...creating a suction effect,

so they can't get out of their room.

Here, I'm pushing!

One, two, three!

Okay, okay.

Come on, come on.

Just get in there.

Go in there.

Go in there, it's safer.

Go in there.

Okay, here's some pillows.

The wind speeds were really catastrophic

as it made landfall.

The track of the storm was really a worst-case scenario

for Puerto Rico.

The wind seems to have changed directions,

and, uh, it's now just blasting these windows,

and we're all in the bathroom.

As I've always said,

the bathroom is the best place to be

during really bad winds.

Maria wreaks widespread destruction across Puerto Rico.

Whole neighborhoods are devastated,

and the entire island loses power.

Mountain rivers flood the highlands,

hundreds of landslides cover roads, engulfing buildings,

while winds gusting up to 155 miles an hour

leave homes gutted.

This here was my room.

Was.

This one right here was my grandmother's room.

The kitchen, right here.

And...

here was the living room, right here.

Was.

Although the official death toll is 64,

some later estimates for those who died

during the storm and its aftermath

exceed 4,000.

In the months following the storm,

getting the basic necessities of life is an uphill battle.

We don't have any electricity, we don't have any water.

We don't have any signal, we cannot communicate.

There are only a few spots, along highways,

where people can find cell signals.

We have a crisis, you know, in P.R.

Basically, we got hit hard.

People are dying.

You know, no water, no electricity.

And it's just pure chaos, basically.

It is so sad to see this island,

and we... there's no more food, either.

We can't get food in here.

And my dog died from the storm.

She got so nervous, and it was so hot, she died.

So we've been through a lot.

A lot, a lot.

Days are spent in line for the essentials,

just to survive.

We wait for water, food, first aid.

Any kind of help that they can give us.

3.3 million Americans endure

what many see as a lackluster government response

to the crisis.

I think that the message is clear.

Puerto Rico is devastated by the hurricane,

and we are in need of help.

FEMA is here, but we will need more.

These supplies beside me

just will last for a couple of days.

Three devastating hurricanes hitting the U.S.

in a single season.

Is it a fluke, bad luck,

or is there a reason this is happening--

a reason that can be traced

to the fact that our climate is warming?

We now know 16 of the 17 warmest years on record

occurred since 2001.

A century and a half of burning fossil fuels

on an industrial scale

has released billions of tons of long-buried carbon

into the atmosphere.

In the form of carbon dioxide,

it traps heat, warming the oceans.

This not only provides more fuel for powerful storms,

it raises sea level as glaciers melt

and warm water expands.

During storms, even a small rise in sea level

can have an impact,

causing powerful storm surges and increased flooding.

One way to gauge the speed of sea level rise

due to climate change

is to track the history of changing sea levels

going back millennia--

before we began burning fossil fuels.

Andrea Dutton collects samples from ancient coral reefs,

like this one exposed just above the shoreline.

Since the corals she studies need sunlight,

they can only grow where the water is shallow,

making them a measuring stick for sea level.

By analyzing the cores,

Andrea can compare how fast sea level rose in the past

with current rates.

Today, the global average sea level

is rising at about three millimeters a year.

So that's about a thickness of two pennies stacked together.

Which doesn't sound very impressive, right?

But when you look at the rate of sea level rise we see today,

it far exceeds anything we've seen

in the past several thousand years at least.

And so sea level was going along,

and then it started rising very rapidly

during the industrial period.

Sea level has responded to this increase in temperature

and is now rising very quickly.

Andrea has also found evidence

of hot spots along the Florida coast,

where sea level is rising at an even greater rate.

We started pulling the tide gauge records,

and we realized that there was a very rapid acceleration

of sea level by almost five inches.

And so when we talk about three millimeters of sea level rise,

that's the global average that we see right now,

that's about one foot per century.

And all of a sudden

we get five inches in five years.

I mean, that's a huge amount.

That kind of increase

in areas that are already vulnerable

to flooding and storm surge

will serve to magnify the impact of hurricanes.

When we have a prolonged onshore wind,

we already have heightened sea levels along the coast,

so this compound flooding from storm surge and heavy rain

is just going to get worse, because of sea level rise.

In fact, in May 2018, a new study concluded

that above-average ocean temperatures

increased rainfall during Hurricane Harvey by 15% to 38%.

These authors warn

that future Atlantic hurricanes are likely to be bigger,

more intense,

and longer lasting than in the past.

By the end of the century,

three Category Four storms hitting

is going to be not that unusual.

It's going to happen more often

with warmer oceans and climate change.

As the atmosphere warms

and the ocean warms,

there's more energy in the system.

And that energy has to be released somehow.

So we expect from our understanding

of the global earth system

that as we increase the temperatures of the system,

we should expect to see stronger

and probably more frequent storms.

Today, Category Four and Five storms

only make up about ten percent of the hurricanes

that hit the U.S.,

but they produce half the damage.

Even one or two more of these powerful storms each year

will be devastating to vulnerable communities.

We need to plan for a future

where storms are going to be more intense

and sea level rise is going to be higher

and storm surge is going to wipe out

a lot more of the coast when it hits.

One of the things that I hope comes from 2017

is forethought on how we plan

in terms of resiliency

in places like Puerto Rico or perhaps even the Keys.

We know that we are going to see hurricanes again

and perhaps even stronger ones,

if the climate change literature is correct.

In 1998 we had Georges.

Their houses were destroyed.

And they're building the same thing in the same place.

We don't learn,

you know, to prepare for the next hurricane season!

I look forward to the day when we can move from tactical

to strategic when we talk about hurricanes.

And case in point would be

evacuation versus shelter in place.

Today we are heavily reliant on people getting out of the way

when storms come through.

Are we going to be able to do that 50 years from now,

a hundred years from now,

when the coastal population has exploded?

Four months after Maria pounded Puerto Rico,

the storm's power still reverberates

in the lives of the people.

It's a little rough, because it's so limited.

The only gas station we have right now is just ruined.

The stores were closed.

We had to drive far away

to even get money to even go buy things

for us to survive and our family.

Everybody was getting sick

because we didn't have a way to find food or water.

Families in the mountains still have no running water,

and power is months away.

Well, electricity, as you can see,

we still don't have no electricity, 100 days after.

And this is reality.

I couldn't believe what was happening to us.

We lost everything.

Everything!

It will take eight months

and $2.5 billion

to restore power for most islanders.

And even then, blackouts continue.

For the fishing industry,

the loss of boats, traps, and piers

puts hundreds out of work.

And many more jobs and homes are lost permanently,

spurring hundreds of thousands to leave the island

in what some have called a mass exodus.

Many organizations talk about

environmental or climate refugees.

And I think 2017 Atlantic hurricane season

may have ushered in that era for the Caribbean.

Maria, a single storm,

causes some $90 billion in damage in Puerto Rico alone,

the third costliest behind Katrina and Harvey,

and in a territory whose gross national product

barely clears $100 billion a year.

We're going to get back up.

We're going to rebuild Puerto Rico again.

The climb has been hard, but we're getting there.

We are getting there.

This is hurricane country.

Indeed, the word "hurricane"

comes from "Huracán," the Caribbean god of evil.

These islanders' considerable grit

has been forged by the winds.

At first,

it was really hard to take in, you know,

I cried for a few hours.

But...

you just have to accept it,

because there's nothing I can do right now.

So I've got to stay positive and work.

In Houston as well,

many are also struggling to stay positive

with the help of neighbors and community.

A canoe shows up on our street.

But these two guys went,

"We heard there were people here that needed to get out."

My wife is obviously crying at this point.

And he just says, "Where are you going now?"

She's like, "I have no idea."

And I always joke about, like, you know,

if there's ever an apocalypse, we're the first to die,

because we have seven children, who are not helpful, and a dog.

So I'm like, "No one takes in the family of nine and a dog."

And, and the Ramseys did.

They live literally like two blocks up,

and they were on a high point,

and they just said, "All right, come on."

And it starts pouring down rain again,

and they're taking these wet, rowdy kids, and their dog,

into their home.

When Aric first returned to his Houston home after Harvey,

he shot a video that went viral,

bringing a message of hope

to the millions who lost so much to this hurricane season.

My son who's 13

loves playing piano, plays every day.

He was kind of worried about his piano,

and so I was like "Hey," I handed him my phone,

I was like, "I'm going to just play real quick,"

and let him know that it works.

I'm going to have to tune this one.