Opinion

Opinion Roundup: Florence not over yet, thousands rescued from flooding, solutions to climate change and more

Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: Hundreds rescued from flooding in historic NC city, DHHS takes new approach to storm response, regulators keeping an eye on toxic waste sites, scientists warn of rising sea levels, solutions to climate change and more.

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Hurricane Florence
Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: Hundreds rescued from flooding in historic NC city, DHHS takes new approach to storm response, regulators keeping an eye on toxic waste sites, scientists warn of rising sea levels, solutions to climate change and more.
Good morning. In much of North Carolina, Florence’s rains are slowing, swollen rivers in the more inland areas of eastern N.C. may be flooding while coastal high waters are receding. Those of us who have weathered the storm safely are now starting to ponder cleaning up the mess left behind.  To keep up with the latest developments, please go online to www.wral.com or tune into WRAL-TV or on your radio in the Triangle area tune to 101.5 FM.
FLORENCE ARRIVES
At Least 5 Deaths Reported as Storm Drenches Carolinas (New York Times reports) — The winds of Florence have eased, but the storm was expected to continue its torrential downpour on the Carolinas on Saturday, with officials fearing the worst damage was yet to come. Forecasters are predicting record-setting rainfall as high as 40 inches, with an additional 10 to 15 inches still expected in some areas of North and South Carolina.

RICHARD FAUSSET CAMPBELL ROBERTSON: In New Bern, 'downtown is literally underwater' (New York Times reports) — There is plenty of past in this city: 308 years of it, colonial governors, Union troops, communities of freed slaves and yes, hurricanes, plenty of them. But none of it, at least nothing that anyone alive could remember, seemed to prepare New Bern for Hurricane Florence.
TAMARA LUSH: Hundreds rescued from flooding in historic NC city (AP reports) — An ominous tweet appeared on a historic NC community's Twitter feed about 2 a.m. Friday. It came as rivers swelled, tides crested and the rain wouldn't stop. And that's when people found themselves trapped in their homes as the water rose.
SETH BORENSTEIN: A warmer world makes hurricanes wetter and more intense (AP reports) — For years, when asked about climate change and specific weather events, scientists would refrain from drawing clear connections. But over the past few years, the new field of attribution studies has allowed researchers to use statistics and computer models to try to calculate how events would be different in a world without human-caused climate change.
ROSE HOBAN: DHHS Takes New Approach to Storm Response (NC Health News reports) — Now that Florence has blown ashore in southeastern North Carolina, state officials are indicating that storm response will be “a marathon, not a sprint.”

DAVID VON DREHLE: We don’t need more doomsday climate predictions. We need solutions — like this one (Washington Post column) — Debating over doomsdays only empowers the climate skeptics, because it takes a topic of consensus and puts it in the realm of dispute. People don’t need more fear of climate change. They need more hope for solutions. And one single step could galvanize the awesome power of America’s economy toward answers: cap and trade.
MICHAEL BIESECKER: Regulators keep watch on toxic waste sites during hurricane (AP reports) —As Hurricane Florence spins inland, environmental regulators are monitoring more than three dozen toxic waste sites in the storm's path, as well as scores of low-lying water- and sewage-treatment plants at risk of flooding.
JEFF HAMPTON: Outer Banks "dodged a bullet" with Hurricane Florence (Virginian-Pilot reports) — A feeling of relief spread over the narrow barrier island as the outer bands of Hurricane Florence passed. There were no injuries, no soundside flooding and no serious power outages on Hatteras Island.
ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER: Scientists warned of rising sea levels in N.C. GOP lawmakers shelved their recommendations. (Washington Post analysis) -- N.C. was a leader in coastal management, said Stanley Riggs, a distinguished professor of geology at ECU. It heeded the advice of a “tremendous team of scientists” studying the origins and evolution of the Eastern Seaboard, of which N.C. has a particularly broad swath. But now, his pride in his state has been replaced by fear and dismay, as Hurricane Florence, recently downgraded to a Category 1 storm, bears down on the southeastern United States, bringing warnings of “life-threatening” storm surge and rainfall, according to the National Hurricane Center. The state’s coastal plain, Riggs said, would not be in such grave danger if lawmakers had not rejected a study prepared by a panel on which he served that predicted the sea level would rise 39 inches by 2100 because of climate change.
A bad decision is back to haunt (Fayetteville Observer) — It is, as Yogi Berra once put it when he described a baseball moment, “deja vu all over again.” In this case, the deja vu, and the embarrassment that rightly goes with it, belongs to our NC lawmakers. The legislature passed a law that decreed, “No rule, policy, or planning guideline that defines a rate of sea-level change for regulatory purposes shall be adopted.” It was a gift to the state’s deep-pocketed and politically powerful coastal development industry
PATRICK RUCKER: Florence Seen Testing North Carolina Environmental Codes on Toxic Hog Waste (Reuters reports) -- Tropical Storm Florence could taint N.C. waterways with murky coal ash and toxic hog waste as heavy rains test environmental rules written with milder weather in mind, carrying the risk of contaminating water with bacteria like salmonella, officials said.

CAMPAIGN 2018
The State of Play in N.C. and Wisconsin (Election Law Blog column) -- I wanted to flag some significant developments that took place this week in the North Carolina and Wisconsin partisan gerrymandering cases. In N.C., the trial court agreed to stay the remedial process on the condition that the defendants file their jurisdictional statement with the Supreme Court by October 1. With a J.S. filed that soon, it’s highly likely that the Court will hear and decide the case in its upcoming term. So after last term’s anticlimactic cases, this term may well include a decision that does get to the merits of gerrymandering.
An appealing verdict (Fayetteville Observer) — The judges said they will require new boundaries for the 2020 elections, and they gave Republican legislators until Oct. 1 to file an appeal of that decision with the U.S. Supreme Court. It will be this case’s second trip to the nation’s highest court.
POLICY & POLITICS
Bezos promises HQ2 site decision by year's end; study says Raleigh rental demand would soar (WRAL-TV/Techwire reports) -- A new study from a rental search firm says that demand for rentals in Raleigh would soar the highest among any of the finalists for Amazon’s HQ2.
2 Charlotte regional business groups to merge (AP reports) -- Two major Charlotte-area business groups are merging to promote economic development and job growth in their region. The Charlotte Chamber and Charlotte Regional Partnership said they'll begin operating as a combined organization Jan. 1, provided both boards approve the deal.
EDUCATION
TYLER DUKES: UNC officials watched protesters closely as Silent Sam fell, texts show (WRAL-TV reports) — The correspondence shows that many of the university's top executives and public relations staff were closely monitoring the protest that brought down the Confederate monument.
AND MORE…
Miss America does Winston-Salem proud (Winston-Salem Journal) — Let’s admit a little bias. We might not have chosen to write about the 2018 Miss America pageant if its winner hadn’t been Winston-Salem resident Nia Franklin. But because she won, we can’t help feeling some hometown pride and claim her as a worthy representative of our city.

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