Canada Tells Flood Victims It’s Time to Move
The city of Gatineau, just across the river from Canada’s capital city of Ottawa was inundated by a 100-year flood in 2017. Then, this past April, the flooding was worse, which has prompted the government to tell people who lost more than 50 percent of the value of their home to just leave.
Canada has decided that the best thing for many people to do in the face of escalating costs from the climate crisis by limiting funds for rebuilding and telling people to move. It has caused entire neighborhoods to be removed, house-by-house, as the New York Times reported.
Recent research has questioned the decision to rebuild and has advocated retreating from the coasts. A paper published in the journal Science said that retreat from floodplains is inevitable and should be done preemptively, as EcoWatch reported.