June 2022 Director’s Corner

“Floods are ‘acts of God,’ but flood losses are largely acts of man.” – Gilbert F. White

The May CRC Roundtable webinar was of special significance to CRC because it is out of tropical storm Agnes that we were born as a formal organization – we too are celebrating our 50th anniversary. The birth of the CRC represented a multi-institution gathering of scientific resources to respond to a major event and learn what we could, as quickly as we could, to inform future decision making and action for the ecosystems that we are passionate about. Agnes is a midwife not only to the CRC, but to many of our individual professional journeys as well.

Agnes meant a lot to me, personally, just as it meant a lot to our speakers and many attendees who shared their stories in the chat. I was living between Elmira and Corning NY, and spent time helping clean out devastated homes of my Dad’s colleagues – it was the beginning of an educational journey around water, how it moves, and what it supports.

As Elizabeth mentioned in some of our conversations leading up to the webinar, the cohort of people who experienced Agnes and are still researching water in some capacity are dwindling – now is the time to share our experiences and stories so they aren’t forgotten. There are lessons to be learned from Agnes, especially applicable now as our climate changes and more frequent and extreme storms are expected to roll through the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Our May speakers shared perspectives on what made Agnes so impactful, what we learned, and if we would be better prepared if an Agnes-like storm hit on its 50th anniversary next month.