Via Flickr/Fady Habib
If you’re sizing up the chance of a climate disaster in, let’s say (because researchers did) 2040, St. Louis is at greater risk than many comparable U.S. cities. But we also score higher on readiness to cope with said disaster.
The data comes from the Notre Dame Adaptation Initiative, and Eyiul Tekin, a Ph.D. candidate at Washington University and a summer associate in Clever Real Estate’s research department, analyzed its import for St. Louis.
Overall, our risk for disaster is just above 50 on a scale of 0 to 100. For comparable cities, the risk is 39.
Our readiness score, though, is almost 54. For comparable cities, readiness is only 46.
Risk spans five categories: flooding, heat, cold, drought, and sea-level change. (Hopefully, we can relax about that last one.)
Readiness looks at how educated we are, how solid our bond ratings are, how corrupt our government is, how nicely we cooperate.
Bottom line: St. Louis’ greatest danger is from extreme heat, followed by drought, followed by cold. Surprisingly, the probability of a major flood event in 2040, or even between now and 2040, came out low, which might raise a few eyebrows locally. But even if they’re wrong, our preparedness score for floods is a whopping 75.1.
(That said, the granular stats show that 53 percent of our area’s surface was impervious at last check, which does not bode well.)
For a heat disaster, St. Louis has a risk score of 56, with a preparedness score of 47.8 and a high sensitivity because of the percentage of our population that’s older, younger, living with a disability, or working outdoors.
The risk of extreme cold is 49.8, and our preparedness is better, 74.4.
For both these health-threatening extremes, we’re well prepared in terms of the numer of hospital beds available (though that’s hardly a consoling stat) and the percentage of the population with health insurance. But the age of our housing stock doesn’t bode well for heating and cooling efficiency: 95 percent of our buildings went up before 1999 and 89 percent before 1979. What can you do immediately? Plant a tree. Only 9 percent of land is under tree canopy, which makes a serious difference.
For drought in 2040, our risk score is 59.7, though the actual probability of a drought emergency in 2040 was negligible. We scored low on sensitivity (which is, in essence, how vulnerable our population is to such a disaster). But in terms of preparedness, which would mean drought management and water management plans in place, we scored a big fat goose egg.
And that’s only if the goose survived the drought.
