Deanne Criswell on Climate Change and Storms: ‘These Storms Are Intensifying So Fast’

EXCERPT:

CRISWELL: "You know, I'm not going to attribute the cause of the storm, but what I can say is that we are seeing an increase in the number of severe weather events. And what we saw with this storm, as we have seen with several of our hurricanes over the last few years, is that they are intensifying more rapidly due to the elevated heat of the water temperature in the Gulf, or in the Pacific, or whether it's in the Atlantic, these storms are intensifying so fast, that our local emergency management officials have less time to -- to warn and evacuate and get people to safety. This is something that we have to take into consideration as we build our preparedness plans, as our local communities build their preparedness plans, and how they're going to communicate and prepare their communities for the types of storms that they're going to face in the future."