The Wrack

The Wells Reserve was well represented at a conference focused on challenges and opportunities for regional resilience in the face of climate change.

In October, representatives from 10 southern Maine beach communities gathered to share their experiences preparing for coastal storms, particularly in the context of rising seas. We report some of what we heard during the half-day program.

Weatherization has always been held up as one of the easiest and first solutions to climate change; why not pick that low-hanging fruit?

It’s too early to tally the full damage from Hurricane Matthew, but I watched closely as four research reserves in our national system took the brunt of the storm.

Beach-based businesses, a powerful economic engine for Maine, are generally little prepared for storm surge and coastal flooding. Yet lessons learned from previous disasters underscore how important the recovery of businesses is to the overall recovery of a region’s economy.

Mantoloking, New Jersey, October 30, 2012.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 8/30/2015. (Continued from Remembering Katrina, Part I.)

Ten years ago this week, Category 3 Hurricane Katrina left nearly 2,000 people dead, hundreds of communities uprooted, and more than $100 billion in damage along the Gulf Coast. Adding in Superstorm Sandy’s devastation in October 2012, just two events swallowed the equivalent of: five months of Medicare spending, or two years of the federal education budget, or four years’ worth of the Federal Highway Trust Fund, our national gasoline tax-funded infrastructure bank that is now running on empty. So much money, washed out to sea.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 8/23/2015.

Perhaps a butterfly flapped its wings in Hong Kong, or perhaps the gods who play dice with the sky rolled double sixes. Whatever the cause, the atmospheric disturbance that formed over the southeastern Bahamas on August 23, 2005, would go on to have massive effects.

The Wells Reserve recently hosted coastal communities from Kittery to Scarborough for a workshop titled Tracking Progress - Better Safe than Sorry. The workshop was a combination of presentations and group discussions for participants to discuss how their communities are working to improve their resilience to coastal hazards and extreme weather events in light of climate change. The workshop gave participants the opportunity to identify shared goals and track progress towards these goals.

For the past thirty years (and counting), each month has been warmer than its average. We may remember, year to year, locally colder Januarys or cooler Julys, but around the world, our collective thermometers have not seen a dip for 360 straight months. 

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 2/22/2015.

I learned a new word this year. Subnivean, from the Latin for “under” (sub) and “snow” (nives). It’s the zone within and underneath the snowpack. It’s where we’ve all been living lately.