White House warns of ‘intensifying impacts of climate change’ as Biden tours flood-hit Kentucky

On Joe Biden’s visit to flood-ravaged eastern Kentucky today he is not just viewing the effects through the lens of a disaster needing federal assistance but also through the lens of the climate crisis that is making events like this more intense, more common and more deadly, in America and around the world.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre addressed the issue in her media briefing aboard Air Force One en route to Lexington with the US president and first lady Jill Biden a little earlier.

“The floods in Kentucky and extreme weather all around the country are yet another reminder of the intensifying and accelerating impacts of climate change and the urgent need to invest in making our communities more resilient to it,” she said.

Kentucky was hit by massive flash flooding in the last two weeks that killed 37 people and caused mass destruction. The atypical rain storms followed eight months after tornadoes killed almost three times that many people in western Kentucky and many parts of the country are suffering record heatwaves, drought and wildfire after an extreme 2021 in the American west...MORE

So I got to thinking, if this was something new or unique for Kentucky, then one might conclude it was due to recent changes in the environment. However, if you look up the history of flooding in Kentucky you will find the following:

1927

The Mountain Eagle newspaper in Whitesburg reported in its June 2, 1927 edition that a cloudburst a few days before had caused flooding that killed 16 people in the county, with others still missing.

“Property damage cannot be estimated. Homes are destroyed, livestock and poultry drowned, and whole farms practically ruined,” the story said. “The fury of the flood far exceeded anything that has ever hit this area in its history.”

January-February 1937

Rain fell almost every day in January 1937 in the Ohio River valley, totaling almost four times the normal amount, pushing the river above flood stage by late in the month.

There was flooding on the river from Pittsburgh to Illinois, but Louisville was hit the hardest. At one point nearly 70% of the city was covered by water, forcing 175,000 people to leave their homes.

“The worst catastrophe in the history of Kentucky has fallen upon our people in the valleys of the rivers and streams of Kentucky and the Ohio River,” Gov. Keen Johnson said...

July 1939

A cloudburst overnight on July 4 and 5 created “catastrophic flash flooding” in Eastern Kentucky as water cascaded off the hillsides, according to a National Weather Service report.

The U.S. Geological Survey, which studied the flood, said that while reliable measurements were not available, it estimated based on descriptions by residents that rainfall exceeded 12 inches and may have approached 20 inches at the center of the storm.

There were estimates that the water in Frozen Creek, in Breathitt County, rose 20 feet in 10 minutes, the USGS report said.

Residents described the rapid rise variously as “an approaching wall of water which billowed up like clouds,” “a 15-foot wall of water crashing down the valley,” or “like thunder with livestock, pieces of houses, and countless other things all being whirled together on the breast of the torrent as if in a great mixing pot.”...

And so it goes. Seems to me it is quite a stretch to assert a direct link between temperatures and the most recent flooding event.