I went to North Carolina. My car is now a swimming pool.

According to the staff at the large international hotel where I was staying in Wilmington, North Carolina, it was entirely my fault that the river joined me in my poor little Subaru. It turns out that I had not properly prepared for the possibility of having a freshwater pool in my car.

I was in town to report record floods. Carolina Beach was thrown on…21 inches of rain– and the Cape Fear River, apparently not content to stay put, wandered onto the streets of Wilmington. Scientists attribute it to climate change caused by society’s continued attachment to fossil fuels.

Here’s the lesson: warmer air holds more moisture, so when it rains, it really rains. The kind of rain that makes you consider selling your car and buying a boat.

Private corporations gain wildly from this addiction to oil and gas, but it seems less and less likely to take responsibility when it harms us and our property.

I paid to park in the then dry hotel parking lot, thinking it was the responsible thing to do. The hotel said it had posted warning signs about the possibility of flooding. Yes, there were two of them. But they couldn’t be seen at night, and I’m not an owl.

The hotel should have mentioned that the river may decide to check the inside of my car during Rain lasting 1000 years. They began to ignore my complaints, including that there was a coffee machine in my room but no coffee. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know…

As we face nature’s increasingly savage behavior in the face of a heat burst – a flood, fires, droughts, hurricanes, poverty, diseaseand all this cool stuff – it’s not the corporations that are going to pay the bills. This pleasure will come to us when we pay more home insurance, foodtaxes, infrastructure and almost anything else you can think of.

So how do you prepare for a disaster?

This week on The Meltdown, we explore how technology can help us prepare for the impacts of Hurricane Helene and other climate disasters.

Hurricane Helene

How Hurricane Helene barrels towards panhandle Florida and south Georgia, which is forecast to reach Category 4 by Friday evening, the clock is ticking for residents to prepare and I’m evacuating. While many residents of the Gulf of Mexico have their own hurricane survival strategies – stockpiling canned food, flashlights, gasoline and caring for these precious animals— there are some handy tech tools that can make a huge difference, even at the last minute.

First, weather apps like NOAA and AccuWeather can provide real-time updates on storm track, wind speeds and precipitation forecasts on your phone. Another necessity is emergency alerts from FEMA or local government platforms offering key information on evacuation orders and other safety warnings. And if the power goes out, spare batteries or portable solar chargers will help keep essential devices running.

But there’s a lot more technology that can help – everything from GPS apps that plot evacuation routes to smart home devices that remotely monitor flooding.

Want to know how electric vehicles or drones can help with hurricane preparations?

Before you continue reading, you can follow me Twitter, Facebook AND Instagram. And share this newsletter with your friends if you think they will like it.

What do the numbers say?

18 inches: quantity forecast rainfall will fall in the Appalachian region after Hurricane Helene hits.

20 feet: height predicted storm surge from Hurricane Helene.

835 megawatts: power generated by restart nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island to help power Microsoft’s artificial intelligence operations. That’s enough to power 700,000 homes every day.

WITH: the degree of climate action delivered by John Kerry, the president’s special envoy for climate, to major greenhouse gas emitters at a major climate summit in New York earlier this week.

250: the number of employees who will be part of President Biden’s staff Environmental Justice Corps started on Wednesday.

Climate change is unpredictable

And so, as I sit here drying both my Subaru and my pride, I can’t help but think: If only the hotel staff had warned me that their parking lot was moonlit like a riverbed, I might have had time to invest in a kayak.

But at least now I’m better prepared for the next 1,000-year storm. Until then, I’ll keep an eye on Hurricane Helene and my weather app, because as it turns out, the only thing more unpredictable than a river in your car is climate change. Stay dry and safe.

Thank you for reading Meltdown. Sign up, share and be nice to people. Send your environmental and climate tips to: [email protected]

See you next week.

Chris Harress