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Journalism of Courage
By Alyson Krueger
This time last year, Matthew Aversa was hoping for rain. He even employed rituals he’d used as a child in New England while hoping for snow: “I was putting toothpaste on my nose, and a spoon in the freezer.”
Aversa, 32, runs Winding Branch Ranch, an animal sanctuary in Bulverde, Texas, an area in Texas Hill Country that is prone to droughts and punishing heat. “We need the water,” he said.
But after the catastrophic flash floods in Kerr County over the July 4 weekend that killed at least 135 people, including many children at a summer camp, Aversa has adjusted his outlook.
When there’s rain in the forecast, he jumps into action. The last week of August, he experienced “two crazy amounts of rain,” he said. “Our pasture has flooded twice, and we’ve had to let the animals out to find higher ground.”
“Emotionally,” he said, “rain is terrifying.”
Aversa is hardly alone. As the United States experiences an increase in flash floods, the National Weather Service has issued more flood warnings this year than any year since 1986. According to AccuWeather, there has been a 70% increase in reports of flash flooding this year compared with the 10-year historic average.
Many Americans have come to fear and dread rain. Some have experienced flooding in their homes or on their commutes; others have seen the devastation in the news and on social media. So now, when it rains, many go into catastrophe mode: Cancel plans, shelter in place and check the whereabouts of loved ones.
“We’ve seen responses that mirror what happens when anyone’s basic sense of stability is shaken — a search for control, hypervigilance and grief,” said Devon Harrison, a psychologist and the director of clinical operations at Therapists of New York in New York City, which has helped patients grapple with this.
New York City in particular had two significant rainfalls in July — on the 14th and 31st — that flooded the subway system and roads. “Something once capable of soothing or quieting our city may now signal threat or dread,” Harrison said.
When Eddie Cohen was 17, he was caught in a flash flood in an underpass in Long Branch, New Jersey. “I had just gotten my license,” he said. “I was by myself, and I had to climb out the window and leave my car there.”
Since then, “I get weird flashbacks,” he said.
The weather events of this summer have particularly affected him, said Cohen, who is now 32, lives in Brooklyn and runs an electric vehicle company in Long Island City. “We have a massive window, and I see the water rising in the Anable Basin when it rains,” he said, referring to an inlet in the East River.
His coping mechanism? “If there is a torrential downpour, I cancel my plans,” he said. “I am just too afraid to get stuck again.”
On the flip side, he now feels less alone with his fears. “People understand that flash floods are a big deal,” he said. “It’s part of the conversation and top of mind for people.”
Including Aversa, who said: “Of all the things I was afraid of, rain was not at all on my radar.”
For Heather Clausman, who lives in a 100-year-old home in Queens that is prone to flooding, rain has become something that “adds a significant level of stress,” she said. “It’s just gotten so much worse in the last five years.”
Clausman, who is 46 and works in medical sales, is also worried for her family’s safety. When New York issued flash flood warnings July 31, she checked her 11-year-old daughter’s location on her Apple Watch every few minutes. She also told her husband to stay at work and off the subway until the storm passed.
Timon McPhearson, a professor of environmental studies at New York University, understands the disbelief. “I think there have been enough storms now that they are sort of shocking people,” McPhearson said.
He added that flash floods are the new normal. “Storms are holding more water and moving slower and dropping all the rain at once,” he said. “We need to get into the state of preparedness and action.”
Also on July 31, Beth Levick, who works in nonprofit fundraising in Westchester County, New York, was in her office coming up with a worst-case-scenario plan with colleagues for their drives home. Like how to escape a flooded car. “Take the headrest and you break the back window of the car, because that is the part that will sink the last,” said Levick, 46. “I couldn’t believe we were even talking about this.”
Her family was on vacation in Cape Cod when Hurricane Erin, later downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, approached in August. She was so nervous she made everyone stay far inland. “We didn’t go near the ocean until it passed,” she said.
After what happened in Texas, Clausman was particularly anxious about her daughter going to sleepaway camp at the end of August on Long Island. “I reached out to the camp and asked about the protocols,” she said.
In the end, much of the area experienced abnormally dry conditions and was put under drought watch.
