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What will we do when all the levees break?

Humans seem unprepared for what is happening to our planet.

Hurricane Helene barreled through the Southeastern U.S. last week, leaving death and destruction from Florida to Virginia. The news has been uniformly grim. There are at least 213 deaths confirmed in six states, and with hundreds of people missing, expect that number to rise. Helene is currently the third-deadliest of the 21st century, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Maria in 2017.
 
While this kind of disaster is sadly familiar for many in Helene’s path — it’s the third storm to hit Florida’s Big Bend region in 13 months — the dangerous rains and flash floods were a shock for much of North Carolina, parts of which had imagined themselves, erroneously, as it turns out, to be a haven from climate disaster.
 
A quick scan of Blue Ridge Public Radio’s online blog, which serves Western North Carolina, is a journey of despair. The scope: Death toll rises to 72 in Buncombe County; more than 200 missing. The confusion: NCDOT officials reiterated the need for volunteers not to “self-deploy” as the roads that are open need to be clear for first responders and authorized workers. Finally, the hard reality: The water system in Asheville is sprawling, and most water lines need to be completely rebuilt.
 
Designers — of the built world and social systems — are the second responders, the essential workers from various fields who are best equipped to help upgrade a post-disaster world to new standards of safety, reliability, sustainability, and, hopefully, equity. This is now the task that faces North Carolina; the region must be rethought, rebuilt, and redesigned, and the clock is ticking. “We’re definitely expecting more extreme precip[itation] events like what we just saw,” Kathie Dello, North Carolina’s state climatologist, told Politico.
 
But this is not just about design discipline expertise, per se. It’s about the process of stakeholder-focused leadership that design can do so well — when it does it well.
 
Poor and socially vulnerable people are more likely to be negatively affected by climate change’s overall impact. But in times of crisis, these same people are often unable to flee to safety because they risk losing their wage-earning jobs; lack mobility due to disability, poor health, or unreliable transportation; or simply have no place to go. And rebuilding their lives? This is increasingly unlikely due to a lack of insurance, or the historic racism baked into “build back better” financing and government aid schemes that are disproportionately awarded to white and privileged communities.

The clock may be ticking, but the balance has already come due. Last year, the U.S. experienced 28 separate weather and climate disasters costing at least 1 billion dollars, a historic year, according to the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information.

So what we need now is stakeholder leadership — a messy, detailed, and uncomfortable look at how the world is changing, how systems are not, and what that means to all the living things on the planet.

Here is my best advice for anyone who wants to become a meaningful part of any solution. Learn from the people who have studied the actual problem of rebuilding a society that was already unjust. Become comfortable with the uncomfortable idea that there is no clear path forward. Support subject matter experts whose work goes largely unnoticed in the attention economy. Stay open to new ways of thinking and collaborating. Ask better questions of people in positions of power.

And maybe let Brad Pitt sit this one out.

A version of this essay was originally published in the Equity Observer email newsletter. Catch up on past issues hereSign up for insightful commentary, breaking news, and community shout-outs delivered twice weekly. Find your people.

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By Ellen McGirt

Ellen McGirt is an author, podcaster, speaker, community builder, and award-winning business journalist. She is the editor-in-chief of Design Observer, a media company that has maintained the same clear vision for more than two decades: to expand the definition of design in service of a better world. Ellen established the inclusive leadership beat at Fortune in 2016 with raceAhead, an award-winning newsletter on race, culture, and business. The Fortune, Time, Money, and Fast Company alumna has published over twenty magazine cover stories throughout her twenty-year career, exploring the people and ideas changing business for good. Ask her about fly fishing if you get the chance.

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