I didn't know the water was rising until the fire
department came in a boat to rescue me out of my trailer.
Goshen, Indiana is far away from the East or West Coast.
It's not below sea level. it's not even on the shore of the Great Lakes.
But, Midwestern cities like Goshen are being hit with more severe weather and heavier rains.
In 2018, the worst flooding ever recorded in the city
forced the people in Goshen to face the consequences of climate change.
We opened, we tried to open the doors and everything over
there so it was a lot of water, and the waters go inside of the place.
Flooded streets, so we weren't able to get out after a period of time
because everything was flooded over. About four, five feet of water in the basement.
Well, the outcome was pretty much everything inside was was trashed.
Climate change disorganizes the system. It becomes much more uncertain, it becomes
much harder to make decisions that are very costly. Adaptation is usually about costs.
From a climate perspective, you're going to be seeing these effects of flood, drought,
and sea level rise emerging and growing the next thirty or forty, fifty years.
This project, GLISA, it was a chance to learn really quickly what's going on in my hometown,
when we're talking about on the on the ground climate impacts that are happening now.
GLISA is an organization led by University of Michigan scientists. They partnered with Goshen
and dozens of other small and mid-sized cities to help their communities adapt to climate change.
GLISA uses the latest climate and socioeconomic data to provide a
picture of flood-prone areas on the local level.
The benefit of the tool that we receive from GLISA is,
allowing us to see where we can put our resources. We know there are areas of our
town that are vulnerable to stormwater runoff and drainage issues and flooding. We also know
that there's areas of town that the socioeconomic aspects of that of areas of town are different.
Based partly on GLISA's data, Goshen Council just passed a flood resilience plan for the city.
This is this is this neighborhood is one that we had identified as a vulnerable.
It's a 55+ community and the residents are mostly retired. There are a few who do work,
but they're usually part-time. It's a it's a really great community. It's a nice place to live.
But, you know, I didn't notice we were starting to flood until we flooded.
Water was up to my door, and they tried to get my cats into a trash
can so I could take them out too. It lasted three or four days, and then I finally came
back. The water had receded where they could turn the electricity and the gas back on.
What we've been seeing over the last, I'd say six to ten years here,
is flooding a little more frequently but when it does flood it's also heavier,
and we're working hard to try and learn how to live with what's happening but
also make it better so that we can continue to function as a community.
Programs like GLISA, being able to work with a Michigan university too, that's huge in helping
us better understand. Because our staff is often, the size of our city, we're often responding to
issues. We're trying to figure out what's going on during the the time it's happening. But being
able to work with groups like Michigan University to be able to help us better understand as in a
much broader sense what's happening here is absolutely essential for small communities.
Based partly on GLISA's data, Goshen Council just passed a flood resilience plan for the city.
I can't imagine communities being able to function without having access to these types of programs.