Perspectives S36 / Ep25 What History Teaches us about the Dangers of Flooding

The Hurricane Agnes Flood of 1972 was the costliest in American history up to that time, with damage sweeping across eight states, and Tim Palmer, then a land-use planner in central Pennsylvania, lived at the storm’s epicenter. During the first day of torrential rain, he had no idea that the impending flood would inundate whole cities by surprise, overtop dams no one ever expected to fill, sever levees, and transform the place where he, and many others, had been living so peaceably into a war zone. In SEEK HIGHER GROUND: The Natural Solution to Our Urgent Flooding Crisis, Palmer, now an award-winning environmental writer and photographer, goes beyond his personal experience as a flood victim to focus on the larger—and critical—issue of flooding in America. Pairing historical perspectives with in-depth journalism, Palmer explores where we’ve gone wrong in our approach to managing flooding and what we must do differently as global warming continues to spur floods of greater intensity, duration, and frequency.