![]() Yet, during briefings last week, the privately owned utilities Nova Scotia Power and Maritime Electric, which serves P.E.I., dismissed the suggestion that power lines should be buried, saying underground lines would cost up to 10 times more without eliminating the risk of outages.īevan-Baker said these kinds of "standard" answers don't recognize the changing climate realities. Meanwhile, thousands of people remained without power nearly two weeks after the storm hit, and complaints rose about the lack of basics such as heat, electricity, gasoline and even food for seniors in provincially operated buildings. "The Island is changed forever," he said in an interview. Peter Bevan-Baker, the leader of the Prince Edward Island Green Party, saw an altered landscape as he drove around the Island last Friday, with thousands of trees down, farmers' barns destroyed and beaches that define the Island suddenly washed away. "We love the coast so much that people are clinging to their last rock as it goes under. one of the main things is we will just have to move away from the coast," she said. "We will be getting storms that have a lot more longevity because of the surface water being so much warmer," she said.Ī "perfect trifecta" of conditions - general sea-level rise over the past century created by melting glaciers, storm surges and lower barometric pressures during storms - is also increasing the likelihood of coasts being swamped during hurricanes, she added. ![]() ![]() While utility spokespeople referred to Fiona as "historic" in their news releases, Waite - also the science director of the Ocean Frontier Institute - says storms of this magnitude will become increasingly common. The scientific predictions on what's to come aren't reassuring.Ĭanada's Changing Climate, a federal summary of climate science released in 2019, said fossil fuel emissions are likely increasing the intensity of tropical storms that form in the southern Atlantic and head north to the Canadian coastīlair Greenan, a federal scientist at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography who worked on the report, said in an interview that water temperatures off the Maritimes have gone up 1.5 C over the past century, adding a potent source of increased energy for the storms.Īnya Waite, a professor of oceanography at Dalhousie University, said the "sobering" reality is the warmer water shoots heat and moisture into storms like Fiona, giving them a longer duration and, often, a wider path. "It's only early in the hurricane season, and I'm thinking we're off to a bad start," he said the day after Fiona hit. ![]() "I grew up in this area, I wanted to come back to this area, but now I'm not so sure I want to," she said two days after post-tropical storm Fiona damaged the home where she has lived for three years, destroyed her neighbours' houses and swept one local woman out to sea.Īcross the East Coast, similar emotions about the way climate change is altering life can be heard, as residents rebuild their homes and cope with weeks without power, and political leaders are asked how they'll prepare the coastlines and power grids to meet the next gale.Ībout 200 kilometres to the south across the Cabot Strait, in Reserve Mines, N.S., Reggie Boutilier pointed out a missing portion of his roof and wondered when the next storm would come. As she stood near the remnants of flattened homes in Port aux Basques, N.L., Denise Anderson said the thought of continuing to live next to the ocean is hard after a deadly storm foreshadowed the violence of weather to come. ![]()
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