By the Asbury Park Press
When the remnants of Hurricane Ida blew through New Jersey Wednesday night into Thursday morning, the Jersey Shore was mostly spared from the devastation experienced across the state. To the south, multiple tornadoes left a path of destruction, including an EF-3 in Mullica Hills. To the north, torrential downpours led to deadly, destructive flooding in both North and Central Jersey, barely skirting the area.
But if history has shown us anything at the Shore, it’s that horrific storms missing this area is a fluke, not a pattern. And as our reporting has shown, climate change will only make the kind of impact seen around the state from Ida more common.
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As we reported earlier this year, the rise in sea levels brought on by climate change makes it so smaller and smaller storms can lead to significant flooding. Over the winter, the Atlantic City area experienced eight “flooding events,” despite it being a mild season for storms, while a single nor’easter caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage to vital dunes in Toms River and Bay Head.
As more and more areas become prone to more and more flooding, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has increased efforts to offer buyouts and incentives to those living in flood-prone efforts to entice them to relocate. According to the DEP, some 62,000 homes will be at risk of routine flooding due to sea-level rise by the end of the century if action is not taken.
While the most recent evidence of climate change in the area has been fierce storms, don’t forget the heatwaves that also blanketed the state multiple times this summer. Those, too, are going to become more common and, with them, heat-related deaths could increase by as much as 55%.
