Florida residents are returning to their homes to pick up the pieces after Hurricane Milton carved a destructive path through the Gulf Coast.

The storm would have been much worse if not for luck with the wind shear and where it made landfall. But the damage is widespread, as my colleagues reported earlier today. Homes have been gutted, fallen trees and debris line the streets and more than 2 million people were still experiencing power outages late Friday morning. At least 17 people died during the storm and its aftermath, The Tampa Bay Times reported.

In recent weeks, Hurricane Helene and now Hurricane Milton have also caused widespread flooding in the regions they affected. Although the storms have cleared, there are still several threats lingering in the water left behind. Research shows that toxic chemicals, bacteria from sewage and debris mixed into floodwaters during storms can pose serious health risks to hurricane survivors long after the rain has stopped.

Flooding of industrial sites: During Hurricane Helene’s watery onslaught in late September, several industrial sites in the Southeast were flooded, including a plastics factory in Tennessee. Hurricane Milton’s path passed directly through an area with more than a hundred facilities containing industrial waste, from phosphate fertilizer plants to power plants with coal ash ponds.

Officials are still assessing whether potential breaches at these facilities have leaked into the floodwaters or air at dangerous levels, which could cause varying health impacts on residents in the area depending on the type of pollution. It’s a common problem during storms in the US — and one likely to get worse with climate change, researchers say.

According to a study published in July, between 2005 and 2020, two to three times as many excess hazardous waste emissions were reported during hurricanes on the Texas Gulf Coast than during “business-as-usual” periods. Researchers at Rice University in Texas recently created an interactive map showing where active toxic industrial facilities will be most threatened by future flooding, using data from climate modeling company First Street Foundation.

They found that communities most at risk of infection are in the Northeastern US and the Gulf of Texas, where there is an abundant network of oil refineries and petrochemical plants. During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, flooding caused more than a hundred industrial spills in and around Houston, releasing hundreds of millions of gallons of wastewater and chemicals — some of which were carcinogenic — into the environment.

In some cases, communities are not notified when a breach occurs because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires little information from companies about chemical risks, Rice University researchers wrote in a recent article for The Conversation.

“We believe that this limited public information about the increasing chemical threats posed by our changing climate should be front-page news every hurricane season,” they wrote. “Communities must be aware of the risks of hosting vulnerable industrial infrastructure, especially as rising global temperatures increase the risk of extreme rainfall events and powerful hurricanes.”

Wading through wastewater: Another ingredient often mixed into the cloudy soup of post-hurricane water? Sewage – and lots of it. Flooding from Milton shorted out a backup generator at a wastewater treatment plant in the Florida city of Leesburg, sending nearly 2 million gallons of untreated sewage into the streets early Thursday. Other areas on Florida’s Gulf Coast and western North Carolina saw similar flooding during back-to-back hurricanes, Bloomberg reports.

Last week, my colleague Lisa Sorg wrote about how this contaminated water could contain harmful bacteria, such as E. coli, that could contaminate private water sources in North Carolina. Wastewater from animals on farms also seeps into waterways after storms, a growing problem as livestock farming continues to expand, reports my colleague Georgina Gustin.

“We’re seeing a lot more rain in a shorter period of time, and there simply isn’t enough time for the ground or waterways to absorb that much water,” said Sarah Graddy, spokesperson for the Environmental Working Group, which studies climate and environmental impacts. maps. of large-scale farms, told Inside Climate News. “They are flooding activities that are full of pollutants and wastewater that are toxic to people, and the waste ends up in our streams, rivers and private wells.”

Storms regularly overwhelm wastewater treatment plants in the U.S., many of which are outdated and understaffed. For example, in February I wrote about how the atmospheric rivers that drenched California were flooding communities throughout San Diego with billions of gallons of untreated sewage from the Tijuana River Valley.

The dilapidated border sewage treatment plants in this area are often flooded, even during minor rainstorms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently investigating the health implications of this sewage crisis in the Tijuana River, which doctors say is causing an increase in gastrointestinal illness.

Back in Florida, the Department of Health issued an advisory Tuesday warning residents to avoid floodwaters to prevent exposure to a harmful bacteria known as Vibrio Vulnificus. The pathogen thrives in the brackish water left behind by storms and can cause skin infections or, in severe cases, death. Several communities in western North Carolina are still under a boil advisory after Hurricane Helene more than two weeks ago.

“Flood water containing sewage or other harmful contaminants can lead to infectious diseases, especially among people who are already sick, have weakened immune systems, or have open wounds,” Jennifer Horney, professor of epidemiology at the University of Delaware, wrote in The Conversation. “Even after the water recedes, residents may underestimate the risk of contamination.”

More top climate news

The average wildlife population size has declined by about 73 percent between 1970 and 2020suggests a new report published by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London. The Living Planet Index collects data from almost 5,500 species around the world and shows that animals living in rivers and lakes have suffered the greatest declines. However, some researchers have criticized the report, saying there is not enough data available to make a reliable estimate of total biodiversity loss, reports Catrin Einhorn for The New York Times.

The US government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding several projects aimed at building ‘hybrid’ reefs made partly of oysters or corals to help protect coastlines from hurricanesSaqib Rahim reports for Wired. Research shows that coral reefs provide crucial “living barriers” that protect coastal communities from storm surges and sea level rise, which I wrote about in May. Now scientists are increasingly exploring how to scale up this approach by combining natural reef or oyster ecosystems with human infrastructure.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the state of Georgia does not need to reopen voter registration despite disruptions caused by Hurricane Helene. The judge’s oral ruling said the three groups that sued for the extension did not sufficiently prove that the storm disrupted registration before the voter deadline, Jeff Amy reports for The Associated Press. Grist’s Zoya Teirstein recently explored other ways Helene can influence the upcoming presidential elections in key battleground states, if you’d like to read more.

Public libraries are increasingly used as a refuge for survivors of extreme weather eventsPatrick Sisson writes for Fast Company. After Helene reached the city of Asheville, North Carolina, hundreds of locals flocked to the West Asheville Public Library to access one of the few working Wi-Fi hotspots in the area, coordinate meeting places or charge their phones with a rare sliver of electricity available amid widespread power outages. Similar trends are happening in the face of climate-driven wildfires, heat waves and other storms.

Due to an upcoming budget cut the US Forest Service will reduce seasonal staff next summerwhich experts say could have a huge negative impact on public lands, reports Nick Bowlin for High Country News and Vox. The cuts will not affect temporary wildland firefighting positions, but will eliminate the “large, often underappreciated army of seasonal or temporary workers who clean bathrooms and campsites, empty trash bins, maintain trails, welcome people to visitor centers and conduct critical research to the environment,” Bowlin writes.