Angela S. Crumpler: Rain runoff hindered by development
When reading the many stories regarding the horrific flooding we have experienced in North Carolina, I am surprised no one has mentioned our rapid growth as one of the contributing factors.
When we pave over our farms and woodlands to build houses, shopping centers, schools, roads and parking lots, we reduce the area rain has to soak back into the ground. Instead of recharging the state’s aquifers, the water rushes along these hardened surfaces and changed topographies to swollen streams and rivers rushing coastward.
In the six decades I have lived in this state, I have known “100-year” floods to have occurred more than once. I expect them to occur with more frequency not because weather patterns are changing, but because as more people come and change the land, we change the way the water moves when it rains.
Angela S. Crumpler
Garner
This story was originally published October 20, 2016 at 6:26 PM with the headline "Angela S. Crumpler: Rain runoff hindered by development."