Hurricane Florence, which is now a Category 2 storm, continues to bear down on the Carolina coast. The National Weather Service says it is likely to be “the storm of a lifetime” for certain portions of that coastline. Officials have ordered the evacuation of over 1 million people from the coasts of North and South Carolina. Scott Sharp, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in Raleigh speaks with host Frank Stasio with the latest report.
Chrissy Becker is a Jacksonville resident whose house sits 17 miles from the coast. She speaks with Stasio about the process of evacuating her home to a hotel in Hickory where she waits with her family and other evacuees to see what the damage to their communities will be. WHQR reporter Vince Winkel gives an on-the-ground description of the weather effects live in Wilmington.
WUNC data reporter Jason DeBruyn shares how Duke Energy and hog farmers are preparing for catastrophic flooding. WUNC Capitol Bureau Chief Jeff Tiberii attended the governor’s briefings, talked to former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt and visited a local shelter.
Stasio also speaks with Elizabeth Albright, an assistant professor in the practice of environmental science and policy methods at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University about how policy decisions are made in response to extreme weather. Orrin Pilkey, emeritus professor of geology at Duke University, studies the ocean and rising sea levels, and he advocates for the end of beach development. He joins Stasio for a discussion about how climate change is putting the North Carolina coast at risk.
Finally, Stasio is joined by Casey Dietrich, a professor in North Carolina State University's Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering and leader of its Coastal and Computational Hydraulics Team. Dietrich explains the models currently being refined to help predict and plan for hurricanes and their effects on coastlines.
