© 2024 Michigan State University Board of Trustees
Public Media from Michigan State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

MSU Professor Explains Connection Between Harvey and Climate Change

City of Houston, Texas after Hurricane Harvey
Katie Hayes Luke
/
NPR
City of Houston, Texas days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall, bringing flooding rains for days.

Nathan Moore, associate professor of the Department of Geography, Environment and Spacial Sciences at Michigan State University talks with WKAR's Brooke Allen about Hurricane Harvey's impact on Houston. 

"You can’t tie a single event to climate change but this is certainly consistent with what we expect with climate change with more energy in the atmosphere," said Moore when talking about Hurricane Harvey.

Altogether, more than 1,000 homes in Texas were destroyed and close to 50,000 damaged, and over 32,000 people were in shelters across the state, emergency officials reported. 

"This is going to be an incredibly large disaster," Brock Long, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in Washington. "We're not going to know the true cost for years to come. ... But it's going to be huge."

Moore described Harvey as "a pretty peculiar situation" because the hurricane sat over southeast Texas, pulling water from the Gulf of Mexico and dumping it continually for days.

He expects the effects of Harvey will last for years.

"I think an area the area of Lake Michigan has been flooded," said Moore. "That's a lot of damage. This is going to take years and years to recover from." 

Brooke Allen served as local producer and host for Morning Edition, from June 2016-March 2018.
Related Content
Journalism at this station is made possible by donors who value local reporting. Donate today to keep stories like this one coming. It is thanks to your generosity that we can keep this content free and accessible for everyone. Thanks!