America’s Outdated Flood Maps Are a Disaster Waiting to Happen

Individual homes and government infrastructure are built on a lie

(Image Credit: Flood Advisory Services)

The U.S. is grappling with a pressing, almost catastrophic issue: the outdated nature of its rainfall estimates. The NOAA’s Atlas 14, the primary source of rainfall data for infrastructure planning, flood mapping, and insurance policies, relies on decades-old data.

This failure to account for the rapidly intensifying rainfall patterns and storm frequency brought on by climate change has left us all exposed. And as the recent devastation from Hurricanes Milton and Helene painfully illustrates, coastal regions — and increasingly inland areas — are bearing the brunt of these inadequacies.

Coastal Destruction and Inland Surprises: The Toll of Hurricanes Milton and Helene

Hurricanes Milton and Helene, while similar in their origins as powerful Atlantic storms, wreaked havoc in very different ways, highlighting the varied and complex threats posed by climate-driven hurricanes. Both hurricanes demonstrated the terrifying new normal of climate change: unpredictable paths, record-breaking rainfall, and unprecedented flood impacts. Although these storms differed in their trajectories and rainfall patterns, they…