By Corinne Harvey

Lately, the news nationwide has been full of stories about the extreme weather, from hurricanes to wildfires, that have caused devastation from coast to coast. In Vermont, no dramatic weather events have occurred as of late, but climate change is having a powerful impact nonetheless. Peter Hope,instructor of Biology at Saint Michael’s College explains that: “While it is hard to to correlate any one weather event with climate change because it is a long term trend, all the climate models and climate scientists expect that the frequency and intensity of hurricanes will increase…this is what we expect with climate change; it’s totally
consistent. He goes on to explain that what is unusual with the recent storms is their intensity, and how it is unusual to see such destructive storms and the amount of rain that has been seen. As temperatures increase so does the amount of rainfall because of the humidity in the atmosphere.

Vermont has been seeing an increase in rain, and this will continue to happen in more intense rain storms. This has an impact on other environmental problems such as algae blooms and erosion. Hope goes on to explain that the nighttime temperatures are increasing more than those in the daytime and winter temperatures are increasing more than summer ones. This may lead to more rain in the winter.

 

What if it happens here?

With all this in mind, how is our community prepared if intense weather comes our way? The college has a full, comprehensive emergency operations plan including a section dedicated specifically to severe weather, said Doug Babcock, director of Public Safety. . As fits the region, the focus is on responding to snow, but also includes tropical storms, the most recent of which was Tropical Storm Irene, which flooded significant areas of the state. The plan includes shelter-heating systems, electrical power supply and “continuity of operations” which is the college’s ability to maintain as much of a normal life as we can despite the circumstances, Babcock explained. The school has emergency power generators that get tested throughout the year, and Sodexo also has an emergency plan in place to continue feeding the campus community. The college campus is also a certified Red Cross shelter for both the local community and campus itself.