Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said on Sunday that impacts from climate change are “the crisis of our generation,” after Hurricane Ida slammed southern Louisiana and its remnants killed several people in the northeast amid historic flooding.
Whenasked by host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” why projections were not accurate in predicting the severe impact the storm would have in the northeast, Criswell pointed to climate change.
“This storm in particular, it intensified so rapidly in the Atlantic or in the Gulf, that emergency managers, emergency responders had even a shorter time to warn the public and help get them out of harm’s way,” Criswell said.
Criswell said that Hurricane Ida and other recent weather events are “intensifying very rapidly” because of climate change.
“We’re also seeing, as this storm and some of the other weather events that we’ve seen, they’re just intensifying very rapidly and dropping a large amount of rain and tornadoes,” Criswell said.
“This is the crisis of our generation, these impacts that we’re seeing from climate change, and we have to act now to try to protect against the future risks that we’re going to face,” she added.
Wallace then showed a graphic with a list of extreme weather events this year that have exceeded $1 billion in damages, including flooding, extreme cold, tornadoes, severe storms, wildfires and hurricanes.
When asked if recent events are a “normal run of disasters” that the U.S. sees in a year, Criswell said, “I think this is going to be our new normal.”
“We saw intense weather events in 2017. Last year was a record number of hurricanes and a record wildfire season. The UN had just put out their climate report and they said that this is the climate crisis that we’re facing and it’s only going to continue to get worse,” she added.
More than 50 people are dead in the northeast after the remnants of Hurricane Ida pummeled the region, according to ABC News.
In Louisiana, the death toll from the storm currently stands at 12, according to Reuters.