Flood Warning
A series of CBS News WeatherWatch reports examine La Nina, global warming and other weather systems generating important changes in the world's climate.
CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod has the facts on floods and other weather dangers in the United States and what the government is or isn't doing to get ready.
It has been six months and they're still cleaning up Bound Brook, N.J., a town Hurricane Floyd soaked and smoked last fall.
Phyllis Pournaras almost lost her restaurant when Floyd dumped 15 inches of rain and did $70 million of damage just in this one small town.
Pournaras says, "If there is another flood as bad as we had in September, I would never reopen -- never."
There are many ways to describe what happened in Bound Brook half a year ago -- tragedy, disaster, devastation. But if you listen to the U.S. government's chief weather experts, there is one other critically important word to use in understanding the great Bound Brook flood: warning.
"Each year as temperatures continue to warm that adds more potential for heavy and extreme amounts of precipitation," says Tom Karl of the National Climatic Data Center.
Karl is redefining "heavy" and "extreme" saying bad storms could carry as much as 50 percent more water by the end of this century. He says pin the blame on global warming.
"The warmer it gets, the more juicy the air is. You can think of it that way," says Karl, "Warmer air holds more moisture and that's as simple as that."
George Taylor, an Oregon state climatologist, doesn't buy it. He says it's impossible to predict how technology will limit the carbon dioxide emissions at the heart of the warming theories.
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"I think there are people who have decided global warming is a big problem and they are bending over backwards to prove that it's going on," he added.
But if the floods come, the government will be ready. Right? It depends how you define ready. This 21st century forecast comes on the cutting edge of the information age, but the maps of the country's flood plains seem a bit last entury, to say the least.
Just 10 percent of the flood plain maps are computerized.
According to Federal Emergency Management Agency official Mike Armstrong, "We know what the technology is, we have a game plan. We have a timeline. We're ready to do it. We just need the resources."
But there is not enough money. Something they know all about in Bound Brook.
Pournaras recalls, "This town really took it on the chin, yes it did, big time and I hope it never happens again."
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