Flooding

Sally Monroe 10-31-2022

A local fire chief and his daughter drop off goods for a neighbor in July near Drushal Memorial Brethren Church in Lost Creek, Ky. At least 39 people died due to floods in eastern Kentucky. / Seth Herald / AFP via Getty Images

Sally Monroe is an elder at First Presbyterian Church of Hazard, Ky. With her husband Lawrence, she spoke with Sojourners’ Mitchell Atencio.

OUR HOUSE IS completely gutted. All the Sheetrock is gone, the flooring’s gone. It’s just a shell. The water came very quickly. Our neighbor who had a house on River Caney got about two and a half feet of water in his house, but it came very rapidly, and their house was washed away. Our situation is different. We live in the valley a half-mile from the river. We had no idea how high the water could get. We didn’t get the current, and the water came up rapidly ... some pictures from this flood where buildings were just washed off their foundations — it’s horrible to see those homes like that.

10-27-2022
A graphic illustration of Vanessa Nakate, a young Black female activist with shoulder-length black hair and a jacket. She holds a megaphone; an orange background with blue, green, and red geometric shapes is behind her.

Cover design by Cássia Roriz

Activist Vanessa Nakate on Jesus, erasure, and the climate crisis in the Horn of Africa.

A member of the Puerto Rico National Guard wades through water in search for people to be rescued from flooded streets in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona in Salinas, Puerto Rico Sept. 19, 2022. REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo

O God of all creation, as ocean waters warm, / we grieve the devastation that comes with violent storms. / We pray for people struggling— who need your help and grace / on every flooded island and in each flooded place.

A helicopter is being filled up with water from a tank as a wildfire burns near the village of Spathovouni, near Corinth, Greece July 23, 2021. REUTERS/Vassilis Psomas

“Through Devastating Storms” was written for the opening worship service on Aug.1 for the national Presbyterians for Earth Care online conference, “Creation Care Buffet: Come to the Table.” The hymn recognizes the record-breaking heat waves and forest fires in the West and Northwest United States and hurricanes and massive flooding worldwide. It is a prayer that we will love the Earth and love each other, and so work for healing and hope.

Bill McKibben 5-30-2019

Matt Chase

AS I WRITE THIS, I’m looking at images from the disastrous floods in the Midwest and in Mozambique. One is in the heartland of the planet’s richest country and the other on the edge of the poorest continent, but from the air they look a lot alike: waters spread across farmland and cityscape, humans huddled in shelters. They look, actually, “biblical,” to use the word that is sometimes employed to describe devastation on an immense scale.

Flood, of course, was God’s weapon of choice early on, when, pissed off at the general humanness of humans, he vowed to cleanse the earth. But he made an exception for the faithful Noah, and perhaps more important he made an exception for everything else on earth: In this early-on iteration of the Endangered Species Act, he made sure that a breeding pair of everything got on board the ark. And then, once the waters receded, he made the covenant with the surviving humans that guaranteed he would never flood the planet again.

Heather Brady 5-01-2019

President Joko Widodo of Indonesia is moving forward with a plan to relocate the country’s capital city.

Jakarta, the current capital city, has sunk about 13 feet in the last 30 years.

Members of the National Guard and Lumberton Police force rescue Eric Gilchrist, 65, from his trailer to take him to the hospital after experiencing breathing problems in Schoolview Mobile Home Park in Lumberton, N.C. Image via Patricia Nieberg

According to Army Capt. Chris Jakubczak, the National Guard’s first priority was to warn residents to follow evacuation orders, especially those who lived along the banks of the Lumber River. Many residents followed orders, while others chose to stay for various reasons.

Julienne Gage 6-25-2018

LESS THAN 100 YEARS AGO, the introduction of air conditioning made Miami one of the most desirable tourist destinations in America. Today, with a metro area population of nearly 3 million, it’s an even bigger cosmopolitan hot spot, with residents of all socioeconomic backgrounds vying for land in a sea of traffic and, to some degree, rising tides.

Like most of America’s urban centers, Miami is facing widespread gentrification. Plagued by limited public transportation and a desire to work and play in artsy urban districts, increasing numbers of affluent and middle-class residents have been moving inland, pushing immigrants, minorities, and the working class far into the suburbs or beyond county lines.

Climate change, according to some community activists, is exacerbating this phenomenon. In fact, it could soon make Miami a major U.S. focal point for climate justice.

Historically, being on the teal-colored ocean or bay was a priority for the privileged, so the poor were relegated to the interior—with black people specifically being subject to redlining and segregation—removed from much of what gave Miami the nickname “Magic City.” But on average, Miami is only about six and a half feet above sea level, so as the climate warms and tides rise, some investors and renters are moving inland, searching for higher ground in historically black neighborhoods such as Overtown, Liberty City, and Little Haiti. It’s a phenomenon local activist Valencia Gunder refers to as “climate gentrification.”

Gunder, 33, grew up in Liberty City, popularized by the Oscar-winning 2016 film Moonlight, which speaks to the juxtaposed joys and struggles of black Miami. This northwest neighborhood was built in the 1930s to alleviate population density in downtown Miami’s Overtown, one of the only neighborhoods for people of color during segregation. It accommodated middle-class African Americans with modest single-family homes and yards. Over the years, endemic poverty and racism would take its toll, as would South Florida’s tumultuous drug wars of the 1980s and 1990s. But Gunder says Liberty City still had a lot of perks.

Kaitlin Curtice 8-28-2017

People are rescued from flood waters from Hurricane Harvey on an air boat in Dickinson, Texas August 27, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
 

Jesus, when you walked on the water,

you beckoned Peter to come out of the boat, unafraid.

8-24-2016

Image via RNS/Fellowship Church

While much of America over the past week was focused on Trump vs. Hillary or Ryan Lochte and crew in Brazil, south Louisiana was drowning, almost unnoticed, from severe floods. But local churches sprang into action and became places of refuge with resources to share as those who could help others did.

Let's just call the Music City deluge a naturally occurring metaphor.