Energy Secretary: ‘We Don’t Know Fully’ If Climate Change Contributed to the Collapse of the Fla. Building
Death toll continues to mount in Miami-Dade disaster
It's not yet clear what role the effects of global climate change played in causing last week's terrible condominium highrise collapse in Miami-Dade County, but those effects certainly are in effect in South Florida as elsewhere, according to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
The devastating collapse took place last Thursday at the Champlain Towers South condominium in the small, beachside town of Surfside, about six miles north of Miami Beach.
At least 16 people are dead and 147 others remain unaccounted for as the massive search-and-rescue efforts entered their seventh day Wednesday.
President Biden dispatched help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and pledged ongoing help with the disaster to Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.
In terms of causes of the collapse, which destroyed 55 of the oceanfront complex's 136 units, no causes have been ruled in or out — including the potential effects of global climate change.
“Well obviously we don’t know fully, but we do know that the seas are rising. We know that we’re losing inches and inches of beaches, not just in Florida but all around. You know, Lake Michigan, where I’m from, you know, we’ve seen the loss of beaches because the waters are rising,” said Granholm, a former Democratic governor of Michigan. “So, you know, this is a phenomenon that will continue. We’ll have to wait to see what the analysis is for this building, but the issue about resiliency and making sure that we adapt to this changing climate, that's gonna mean levees need to be built, that means sea walls need to be built, that means infrastructure needs to be built.
“We need to make sure that we invest enough in clearing out the forest so we don’t have these weather events. We need to invest in hardening our transmission lines, maybe burying wires so that we can protect areas that are like tinderbox dry,” Granholm added. “There’s so much investment that we need to do to protect ourselves from climate change, but also to address it and mitigate it, and hopefully these infrastructure bills, when taken together, will make a huge step and allow America to lead again."