Cover Story: Earth to Atlanta

On Sept. 21, 2002, an unprecedented level of rain surged through Vine City. The gush of water overwhelmed Atlanta’s dated sewer systems and caused severe flooding, with the water reaching 6 feet deep in areas. Some residents swam through sewage to reach safety. Then-Mayor Shirley Franklin declared a state of emergency after the flooding destroyed nearly 70 homes.

Families were displaced. Bulldozers demolished many of the affected properties. A 16-acre patch of overgrown grass remains where the houses once stood. The emptiness serves as a reminder of the devastation extreme weather can inflict on a city unprepared for its consequences.

Local environmental activist and English Avenue resident Tony Torrence sees a pattern in the heavy rains that continue to overwhelm the neighborhoods in his community.

“I know climate change is impacting my community based on the heavy rain events that have been occurring in the last 10 to 15 years,” says Torrence, president of the Community Improvement Association and co-chair of the Proctor Creek Stewardship Council. “A lot of people are rushing to move uphill while the downstream communities are suffering.”

Torrence recognizes the way climate change plays out in people’s daily lives, particularly in metro Atlanta where increased precipitation, severe heat waves, and droughts are becoming the norm. Still, the conversations surrounding climate change can be polarizing and fraught with misinformation. Many politicians fail to acknowledge its existence. But at least 97 percent of climate scientists agree that man-made climate change exists and poses a threat.

Images of polar bears stranded on ice floes, stormwater surges overtaking island nations, and swaths of once-fertile farmland cracking under the blinding sun dominate the popular climate change narrative. For Atlanta, the story bears the same urgency, but the consequences require a different set of images.

“People think climate change is about polar bears and butterflies, but there is reasonable risk manifesting itself to people now and in the future,” says J. Marshall Shepherd, Ph.D. and Director of the University of Georgia’s Program in Atmospheric Sciences.

In 2015, Shepherd co-authored with Binita KC of Northeastern University a study analyzing Georgia communities’ vulnerabilities to extreme weather events and how climate change exacerbates existing socioeconomic inequalities.

“Climate vulnerability is not just driven by the weather event itself, it’s driven by a combination of that plus the socioeconomic status, plus whether communities live in an urban environment that is likely to flood, so it’s a multi-pronged look at vulnerability,” Shepherd says.

The study, titled “Climate change vulnerability assessment in Atlanta,” looks at increased precipitation, temperature, and the spread of urban heat islands since the 1980s. Existing socioeconomic factors including race, education levels, and unemployment were mapped onto counties under the greatest threat of climate change such as Fulton and DeKalb to create a climate vulnerability index highlighting the state’s most susceptible populations.

The result is a stark visualization of how weather and poverty work together to create a perfect storm of fragility. Coastal towns, communities reliant on agriculture, and metro Atlanta were found to be particularly vulnerable, but often for different reasons. While Savannah faces the threat of rising sea levels, Atlanta must adapt to an array of impacts threatening major urban areas across the globe, including heavy rains and high temperatures.

In metro Atlanta, as in many cities, climate change aggravates longtime racial and class inequalities. Lack of greenspace, increased incidences of asthma, unequal access to resources, and lower incomes disproportionately impact African-American, Latino, and elderly populations. Torrence and a network of community leaders from legislators to local citizens have taken up the fight to build a new Atlanta capable of adapting to an unwieldy climate.

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ATLANTA’S HILLY TOPOGRAPHY can spell disaster for communities at lower elevations. The city sits atop a ridge and when heavy rain falls it plunges downward as creeks and streams overflow.

Fulton County’s history provides an alarming look at the growing frequency of heavy rain events. Four floods were recorded in the county from 1975 to 1984. From 2005 to 2012, that number quadrupled to 16. A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, resulting in heavier rainstorms. More development and increases in impervious surfaces such as asphalt and concrete can cause rain to overburden stormwater management systems. The amount of these dense surfaces has grown in metro Atlanta by at least 15 percent since 1991, according to the UGA study.

For residents living in Atlanta’s low-lying communities, a nuanced understanding of climate change isn’t required to realize the immediacy of its impacts. Harrowing images of cars floating away like leaves, surging creeks, and submerged interstates have become the norm in local news over the past decade. In Torrence’s community, heavy flooding’s effects create an ongoing struggle for residents who fight mold, soil erosion, and crumbling foundations.

“I don’t think too many cities are trying to put money to improve their sewer and wastewater infrastructure because if so they would find out they might have to tear up their downtown area just to do it,” Torrence says.

Flooding has led to deaths, property damage, and the displacement of citizens in metro Atlanta. In September 2009, massive floods caused 10 deaths and $500 million in property damage. This past holiday season torrential storms inundated parts of Interstate 20, Cumberland Parkway, and I-285 West. In February, heavy rains caused a stormwater drain in a low-lying area of DeKalb County to flood.

Reynoldstown residents threatened to sue Atlanta’s watershed department in March after years of complaints about massive puddles pooling in their backyards. In a letter addressed to the department, residents argued that stagnant pools of water act as breeding grounds for disease-spreading bugs such as mosquitoes. The watershed department finally dug up the forgotten stretches of underground piping, rebuilt a manhole, and unclogged an inlet.

Fixing flooding continues to be a tricky issue, especially for communities that sit lower in elevation (sometimes 20 feet) than surrounding blocks. Residents like 93-year-old Mattie Jackson who live in low-lying areas of Peoplestown risk displacement as the city seeks to purchase and demolish their homes to build a retention pond.

The city has since allowed Jackson to stay in her home after a string of high-profile protests, but the public outcry represents the ongoing problem of respecting historic neighborhoods while improving inadequate stormwater management systems.

The ability for cities to withstand heavy rain has become a flash point in the environmental justice debate. Flooding is one of the most expensive natural disasters in the United States. According to the National Flood Insurance Program, total flood insurance claims averaged more than $3.5 billion per year from 2005 to 2014 while the average flood insurance premium was roughly $700 per year — a cost that can be burdensome for homeowners living on low incomes.

“Vulnerability really comes down to income gap,” Shepherd says. “With some of these populations, it’s not just race, it’s that people are disadvantaged in many ways, such as those who need air conditioning, or those who are more likely not to have health insurance. It continues to amplify this notion that the most disadvantaged are the most likely to bear the brunt of climate change.”

In 1995, the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and downstream communities filed suit against the city over combined sewer overflows sending raw sewage and other pollutants into local waterways. Since then, Atlanta has spent more than $2 billion improving sewer overflows in accordance with the Clean Water Act. City of Atlanta voters recently renewed a 1 percent sales tax originally approved in 2004 to update Atlanta’s sewer infrastructure.

The tax has become a major source of funding for the Department of Watershed Management, generating roughly $1 billion since it was enacted and making up 20 percent of the department’s budget. The next round of projects to be funded by the tax revenues include what the city calls “green infrastructure,” which could help alleviate flooding.

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WARMER TEMPERATURES also present a significant danger. Georgia follows a trend consistent with the rest of the world as annual global temperatures continue to shatter previous records. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 15 hottest years worldwide since recording started in 1880 have occurred in the 21st century. Average annual temperatures in the Southeast have increased by roughly two degrees Fahrenheit since 1970 with an expected increase of four to eight degrees by the end of the century.

Metro Atlanta, with its many parking lots, roadways, and sprawling blacktops, is especially susceptible to the urban heat island effect in which buildings and asphalt capture heat and drive up temperatures.

Isolated centers of severe heat pop up throughout metro Atlanta, especially around areas deprived of greenspace. Low-income populations face increased risk because these communities tend to have fewer trees, which provide protection from the sun, help filter out air pollutants, and cool the air by releasing moisture. A more upscale area like Midtown benefits from the cool shade of Piedmont Park, while greenery is scarce and empty parking lots soak up heat in lower-income areas such as Lakewood Heights.

Heat waves — abnormally hot weather lasting at least two days — have proliferated throughout metro Atlanta. According to the UGA study, these heat events occurred roughly every other year from 1984 through 2007 with an average length of two weeks.

“The heat impacts put people without air conditioning at risk, and elderly citizens in the urban centers in Atlanta are particularly vulnerable to increases in heat due to climate change,” says state Sen. Vincent Fort, whose district includes parts of Atlanta, East Point, College Park, and Union City.

Fort spoke last November at the People’s Climate March Atlanta, where he emphasized the importance of including elderly, low-income, and young citizens in the climate debate. He stressed how rising temperatures and heat-related illnesses unfairly burden those vulnerable communities.

Last year, residents of the senior citizen apartment complex Friendship Towers went without air conditioning from May to July in 90-plus degree temperatures.

“When you put seniors who have asthma in a 90-plus degree building and ask them to stay there until June 3, you’re really asking them to risk their lives,” Community Activist Derrick Boazman told reporters at a press conference last May.

After politicians such as Fort spoke out and local activists threatened legal action, the landlords restored adequate air conditioning. Elderly citizens living in poorly run complexes or scattered low-income housing may not always have people to advocate on their behalf. Residents struggling to afford their electricity bills risk falling behind on payments as they have to crank their air conditioning with the spikes in temperature.

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“Climate change and global warming are disproportionately impacting African-American and low-income communities so it’s important that faith leaders understand the necessity of saving the lives of people and the environment,” he says. “The Civil Rights Movement brings a level of awareness that can bring the groundswell to impact the political process.”

Politicians and community leaders are beginning to see climate change as an issue of equality. Civil rights organizations such as the NAACP have launched climate justice initiatives focused on raising awareness about the inequalities exacerbated by climate change.

An increased probability of respiratory diseases such as asthma also comes into play as higher temperatures spread smog and pollution. Fort points to an asthma crisis for African-Americans. In 2015, the Georgia Department of Public Health found that the rate of asthma hospitalization was more than two times higher for African-American adults and the asthma ER visit rate was almost four times higher for black children than for white children.

“Increased asthma from heat and pollution is one of the most obvious impacts in places like Atlanta,” Fort says. “Climate change increases asthma especially in African-American children, which is one of the greatest reasons for children missing school in Atlanta.”

Shepherd stresses that while everyone is equally exposed to the dangers of heat waves and flooding, vulnerability hinges on whether people can access the economic necessities required to withstand the health and financial consequences. And as demographic shifts show poverty moving into the suburbs, state, county, and local governments play an important role in addressing the issue.

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GEORGIA’S ATTITUDE TOWARD climate change is dangerously outdated. Gov. Nathan Deal, during his re-election run against Democratic challenger Jason Carter, said, “Global warming is an argument and a debate that will continue in this country and I have no reason to become engaged in it other than to say I’m the governor of this state.”

This attitude of casual deniability stalls the potential of fragile communities from rural South Georgia to St. Simons Island to adapt to severe weather. In contrast, the city of Atlanta is being proactive in its attempts to improve climate resiliency. Mayor Kasim Reed and Atlanta’s Director of Sustainability Stephanie Benfield attended December’s UN COP 21 talks in Paris, where leaders from around the world agreed on the most comprehensive climate change plan in history.

After days of intense negotiations, 195 countries agreed to voluntary emissions reductions designed to keep global warming under two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Benfield represented Atlanta in the initiative’s C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network of more than 75 cities focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting infrastructures to climate change.

“I think one thing to remember about COP 21 is that even though these countries are making commitments, the actual boots on the ground action plans are often occurring at the micro and city levels,” she says.

Last year, the city of Atlanta released a climate action plan designed to slash greenhouse gas emissions, spur job growth, and improve air quality. The plan zeroed in on a number of focus areas from increased greenspace to adding a fleet of electric city vehicles to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by transportation 20 percent by 2020 and 40 percent by 2030. The city also plans to cut consumption in commercial and residential buildings 20 percent by 2020 and 40 percent by 2030.

Shepherd commends the city’s efforts, while stressing that resiliency on a local level is often most effective when handled by the impacted communities.

“Climate action plans might not do as much good as localized efforts that reduce things like the urban heat islands, because even if Atlanta dramatically reduces its own CO2 footprint it’s not going to make a dent in global climate change emissions on its own,” he says.

Torrence and community leaders have created local models for how residents can reshape their neighborhoods to prepare for the effects of an unstable climate. In addition to making stormwater management plans, Torrence has focused on a variety of greenspace projects designed to provide a holistic solution to climate change.

English Avenue’s Lindsay Street Park opened to the public last year after residents and a number of partners, including the Conservation Fund, Park Pride, and the city of Atlanta, reclaimed the plot from overgrown kudzu. The 1.5-acre park was built over three years for $750,000. The park doubles as a communal space for residents and a barrier against stormwater floods. Flower beds and soil help absorb moisture while depolluting precipitation and filtering clean water into the creek.

Torrence also uses the park as a meeting place to educate residents about stormwater collection, water quality, and preparing for the effects of climate change. “We want to create citizen scientists that can test water, record it, and help to improve water quality in their community,” Torrence says. “What we’re trying to do is help the city of Atlanta incorporate green infrastructure and look to Vine City as a model.”

Other projects such as Historic Mims Park, a proposed 16-acre park in the land left barren by the 2002 Vine City floods, show promise as community-based solutions. While disagreements over the park’s scope and scale have contributed to delays, the Trust for Public Land renewed hope for the park’s future last December by agreeing to raise funds for its development.

The stark reality realized by research such as the UGA study is undeniably bleak. Like the rest of the world, metro Atlanta faces a dire need to keep pace with a climate run amok.