#ruralpoor — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #ruralpoor, aggregated by home.social.
-
When the levee breaks
The USA has 39,000 km of levees in 6825 systems around the country. These levees usually create more predictably navigable rivers and protect the surrounding areas from flooding.
These levees were built from 105 years ago with an average age of 59 years. There was no standardisation of construction techniques. Many were not engineered in the way that we would currently recognise.This has resulted in a variation of how well they have stood up to wear and tear.
Currently about 17 million people live in the potential flood plains of rivers within levees. Most of these are rural and urban poor people. Many urban areas developed after the levees were created taking advantage of land that was deemed to be safe from flooding. These areas are predominantly occupied by black communities.
The first Mississippi levees were created by the French 1717-27 when they raised the natural levees by 1m. These levees were maintained by the slaves of nearby land owners. They were not very successful at containing the Mississippi.
In 1859 the first major levee break near New Orleans flooded 200 city blocks.
In 1993 flooding of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers led to numerous levee breaks and extensive flooding.
In 2005 Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused the Mississippi to flood and the levee to break resulting in extensive flooding of the whole city of New Orleans. About 1390 lives were lost.A recent report has analysed the state of the US levee systems. Professor Farshid Vahedifard who is a specialist in resilience and equitable infrastructure at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health helped to prepare the report.
Commenting on a levee break in March 2023 affecting Pajaro in California, a poor rural community where the per capita income is less than half the state and national average, the federal government had chosen not to take any action to reduce this risk. ‘Why? Because it wasn’t worth it. Because only poor communities live there.’ .
The Biden administration has allocated US$1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law), allocating US$550 billion to rebuilding US infrastructure across the transportation, energy and water sectors.
While this is welcomed, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that, over the next ten years, around US$27 trillion would be needed to bring the nation’s infrastructure up to good condition.
This does not take into account any impacts from climate change. With the intensity and frequency of hurricanes affecting the southern states predicted to increase, even that spend will not be enough.Authorities will need to prioritise how infrastructure spend is to be directed. Predictably, and similar to how these sorts of decisions get made in most countries, the economic value of the properties and land at risk of flooding will be a strong factor.
Kaveh Madani, director of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health. ‘This type of decision making brutally ignores the human element of disasters, leading to increased inequalities and injustice.’. The economic impact is typically the main factor in decision making.
Marginalised rural poor and black communities in these areas are likely to be ignored. This is an example of how communities that are not economically or politically significant are set to bear the brunt of climate change impacts.
New Orleans's Levee System: Timeline
Hurricane Katrina: Facts, FAQs, and how to help
US levee failures much more likely to affect vulnerable communities
-
I highly recommend this Atlantic article. Interesting from top to bottom. I don't know if it is behind a paywall. If it is, please accept my apology and let me know how to do this differently in the future.
This article focuses on a small handful of people who genuinely get the economic pain points of the rural working class and envision a path forward.
Here's a quote:
""""
Murphy is a repeat provocateur. In July, he tweeted that “there are a lot of social conservatives who believe in populist economic policies, and it would be a good idea to have those people a part of a Democratic/left coalition and accept a bit more intra-movement friction on culture issues as a consequence.”
""""#ruralpoor
#theatlantic
#RichMenNorthOfRichmond
#oliveranthony