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Whatever your motivation for buying an electric vehicle, here’s the thing: The first day you own one, you’re going to love it.
Forget the fears that come with a new technology, the negativity that stems from the politicization of EVs ownership, or the dead-and-buried stereotype that EVs are slow and boring rides for greenies only. Electric cars are zippy and fun because, unlike gas cars, they can produce a ton of torque from a resting stop. After a lifetime of listening to a car rattle and roar, I can say from experience that you’ll find driving in electric silence to be a revelation. An EV owner wakes up every morning with the equivalent of a full tank of gas because their home is their gas station.
Want a piece of this bliss? If so, then read on.
Brian Moody, an executive editor at Cox Automotive (which owns Kelly Blue Book) and an author specializing in transportation, automotive, and electric cars.
Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst for the automotive agency Edmunds.
Loren McDonald, CEO of EVAdoption, which provides data analysis and insights about the electrification of the car industry.
“That’s who the PHEV is for,” Moody told me. “You can do your errands around town with 30 to 40 miles, and when the battery runs out, you just keep driving.”
Ask nearly any EV expert and you’ll hear the same thing: “People don’t drive nearly as far as they think they do,” Moody said. Most of us put the vast majority of miles on our cars within a few dozen miles of our homes, running kids around town or driving to work. You’ll use up a small amount of your battery by the time you get home, plug in, and wake up the next day fully charged. Road trips may seem daunting to the uninitiated, but the interstates are now lined with fast-chargers and the number of them is growing quickly.
Building an EV generates more carbon emissions than building a gas car, a difference that’s due to mining and creating materials for the battery. But that’s just manufacturing a vehicle; once it’s built, it has a decade or two of driving ahead of it. A combustion car constantly spews carbon as it burns fossil fuels, which dwarfs the amount it takes to make an EV. Don’t forget: An electric car gets greener as the grid gets greener. The more clean energy is added to the world’s electrical supply, the better EVs get in comparison to gas cars. You’d need to live in a state with an especially dirty energy grid, such as Wyoming or West Virginia, for an EV not to be a much better option than driving around on gasoline. Furthermore, McDonald said, you can forget the propaganda that suggests EV batteries wind up stacked in a landfill somewhere when the cars meet their end. A growing number of companies are ready to recycle EV batteries and retrieve the precious metals therein, while it’s likely that lots of batteries will find a second life in applications such as grid storage.
It’s true that price has long been one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption. Even though tax incentives — together with savings on fuel and maintenance — make many electrics cost-competitive with their gas counterparts in the long term, their high sticker price keeps many people away. But more electric models are beginning to creep down toward the cost of entry-level gasoline cars.
As with buying an old-fashioned gas-guzzler, going to the dealership to get an EV means dealing with pushy salespeople, confusing specs, and haggling over the price. The process can be doubly frustrating for the EV shopper given the relative unavailability of some electric models and reports of some car salespeople who know frustratingly little about the very EVs they hock.
If you live in a market where EVs have taken hold, like the San Francisco Bay Area, expect knowledgeable salespeople who can walk you through the EV buying process. If you live someplace where few electrics are sold, then the experience may be hit-or-miss. Do your own research, and prepare to be your own advocate.
For a long time, things were simple: If you bought an electric vehicle, then you could take a $7,500 credit on your taxes for that year. But things have gotten murkier in the past year or two — in a bid to protect domestic manufacturing, Congress passed new rules stating that a certain amount of the car and its components had to be made in the U.S. to qualify, leaving a confusing, shifting picture of which EVs qualify and which don’t. (To wit: Many Teslas qualify, Hyundais and Kias don’t, while Rivians receive only half the credit because they’re so expensive.) The upside of the changed rules is that buyers are now allowed to get tax credits on leasing an EV, or to receive the credit as an up-front discount on their new EV. Many states have generous incentives, too. Washington, for example, will give up to $9,000 in rebates for buying an EV. “There are enormous discounts on basically every EV on the market, even before we count the $7,500 with the federal tax credit,” Yoon told me.
Before you take the plunge, take a moment and really think about how you drive — because lots of people overestimate what they need. Maybe even keep notes and check your mileage every day for a week or two to find out how much you really use the car versus how much you think you do. If you find that you could get around town on a few dozen miles of charge but road trip every other weekend, then you might consider a plug-in hybrid. If you’ve already got a gas car or hybrid to handle longer trips and are shopping for a second vehicle, there’s no reason not to go for an EV, assuming you can afford one. If you just need basic transportation to take you a few miles to work, hate the idea of ever buying gas again, and want to spend as little as possible … maybe you should get an e-bike.
A refresher: When you buy a car, you typically put a downpayment on the vehicle, and then borrow enough money from the bank to pay off the rest of its price (plus interest and sales tax) in monthly payments over the course of four, five, or even more years. Leasing is like renting an apartment. You put down a deposit and then pay monthly over the course of the lease, typically three years. But like your rent, those payments don't go toward owning the car. At the end of the lease, you give it back. With EVs especially, there are some serious advantages and drawbacks to each approach you should keep in mind.
If you live in a century-old house that would need to have significant rewiring done to accommodate an EV charger, then installing a Level 2 charger might be too expensive, so you might want to stick to a plug-in hybrid. (Again, more on charging below.) Does your office have a charger? If you live in an apartment, does the parking lot have chargers?
“How you refuel your EV is similar to how you charge your smartphone — you do it either throughout the day or at night before you go to bed. You plug in, you wake up, and it's full,” McDonald said.
“The first thing I tell people? You should probably get a Tesla,” Moody told me. Still, Elon Musk’s electric car company isn’t the darling it once was. Tesla has squandered a huge lead in the EV market by focusing on vanity projects like the Cybertruck and lost a chunk of public goodwill through Musk’s misadventures in politics and social media. But the company still has an ace up its sleeve with the Supercharger network, which is better and more reliable than the competition. This will change in the coming years, as the other automakers have adopted Tesla’s plug and their future cars will be able to use Superchargers. But for now, it’s a major advantage that makes owning a Tesla a lot less stressful than trying to get by with a competitor’s EV, especially if you make road trips. For this reason, Tesla’s Model Y — the best-selling car in the world in 2023, and the best-selling EV in America — remains a compelling choice for anyone who wants an EV to be their only car and have it go nearly anywhere.
Don’t want Musk to get your money? Fret not. EV offerings from legacy car companies and new automakers are leaps and bounds better than they were five years ago when Tesla took over the industry. Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia, in particular, have outpaced other carmakers in offering fun and practical EVs. The new Kia EV9 is the best choice for buyers who want a true EV with three rows so they can accommodate six or seven passengers, and it’s a sleek-looking vehicle for its size. Its $57,000 starting price is not cheap, but it’s probably the best deal you can get for a true three-row electric vehicle right now.
The Ioniq 5 is a quirky mashup of a crossover and a hatchback. It’s got enough space to be practical as a family vehicle, but its dimensions aren’t quite like anything else on the market. In the EV-laden part of Los Angeles where I live, it’s the most common non-Tesla electric I come across.
Introduced in 2021, the F-150 Lightning’s game-changing feature is two-way, or “bidirectional,” charging — you can plug into your house and use the energy stored in the truck’s battery to back up your home’s power supply in case of a blackout. Chevy is following suit by putting this tech into the Silverado EV. But even if you’re just driving and not powering your home, the Lightning is impressive — its standard battery produces 452 horsepower, but that number can climb to 580 on more expensive versions, and both offer a ton of torque.
Today’s Rivians are luxury lifestyle vehicles, but they offer a lot for all that cash. The R1 vehicles are spacious and well-appointed on the interior while offering lots of power and range for the off-road lifestyle the brand projects — the high-end version of the SUV gets 410 miles of range with 665 horsepower. Other excellent luxury EVs at the top end of the market include the Lucid Air and Mercedes EQS, but the Air has the space limitations of a sedan (though it is a large one) and the Benz is likely to cost more than $100,000. Rivians are pricey, but they’re not that pricey.
The people’s affordable EV champion, the Chevy Bolt, got the ax last year, but GM has promised to bring it back for people who want a smallish EV that doesn’t cost a fortune. In the meantime, the “SE” version of the Hyundai Kona EV, a small SUV, starts around $36,000 and gets 261 miles of range. (There’s an even cheaper version with 200 miles of range, but trust me: Don’t buy any new EV with less than 250 miles of range — e.g. the Nissan Leaf, Fiat 500, Mini Cooper, or Subaru Solterra — unless you really, really like it.) Chevy finally electrified its huge-selling SUV and rolled out the Equinox EV; while it starts at $41,000 now, GM promises a $35,000 version soon to come.
There are a wide variety of PHEVs that are worth a look, but an especially compelling option is the Toyota Prius Prime. The entire Prius family of hybrids and plug-in hybrids just got a facelift for 2023 that is miles ahead of the frumpy, aging look the car previously had. And where the previous Prius Prime was limited to a puny 25 miles of electric range, today’s will do 44 — enough for lots of people to do their daily city driving without burning any gas.
Some vocabulary to get you started:
Since charging at home is the make-or-break feature that will make your electrified life more convenient than your gas-burning days, your first order of business is getting a Level 2 charger installed. You’re going to need an electrician for this one, since it requires stepping up the voltage (and might require installing a new breaker panel or running new wiring, depending upon your home). Be sure to get multiple quotes so you can compare work estimates and prices.
“When you buy from an EV dealer or Tesla or whomever, they might refer you to an electrician or an installer. There are companies that have services and websites where they do all the work for you. You plug in your address and information, and they'll recommend and refer you to an installer,” McDonald said.
How much this’ll cost you varies by where you live and how much work it’ll take to set up your home, but the national average is $1,200 to $1,500, McDonald says. The exception could be older houses that were not set up for anything close to the electrical load it takes to charge a car, so if you own a hundred-year-old home in New England with lots of original wiring, you might be in for a shock. Don’t forget, however, that lots of incentives are available for setting up EV infrastructure at your home. You might be eligible for a tax credit equal to 30 percent of the cost up to $1,000.
As far as charging away from home? Most EVs automatically show nearby charging stations on their touchscreen navigation systems and will route you to the necessary stops along a long drive. Teslas will even show you how many stalls are available at a given Supercharger and how many other cars are en route. As an EV driver, you’ll get to know the fast-chargers in your neighborhood and along your familiar highways, but you’ll also get to know sites like Plugshare that will display every charger of every speed and every plug throughout that country — invaluable for planning a journey.
As you get comfortable with your own driving habits, you’ll figure out whether you need to expand your choices by purchasing adapters or dongles that let your car charge at different kinds of plugs. For example, today’s non-Tesla EVs eventually will be able to charge at Tesla superchargers, but because they are still being built with the competing CCS standard, you’d need an adapter to allow today’s Ford Mustang Mach-E to use a Tesla plug. I have an adapter in my Tesla Model 3 to use the “J1772” plugs you find on the Level 2 charger at the grocery store, and I bought one for the NEMA 14-50 plugs common at an RV campsite — just in case I really get into trouble out there.
When a car brakes to slow down, energy is lost. But in an EV, some of it can be recaptured via regenerative braking, a system that captures the energy from waste heat and puts it back into the battery. This allows for an experience unavailable to the gasoline motorist called one-pedal driving: Take your foot off the accelerator and the car immediately slows itself down via the regenerative braking system. When I drive my Tesla Model 3, I only hit the brake pedal when I need to slow down in a big hurry; otherwise, I let off the accelerator and let the car coast to a stop. This system can add several miles of range back onto the battery if you’re coasting out of the mountains on a steep downgrade.
A word of warning: Many people don’t like regenerative braking, at least at first, because it feels jerky to have the car instantly slow itself down when you let off the accelerator. But trust me, you’ll get better and better at letting off the pedal slowly so you don’t make your passengers nauseous. It’s also possible in many vehicles to turn down the regen so it’s less aggressive.
For starters, think of all the car vocabulary you won’t need anymore. An EV’s power output can be measured in torque and horsepower, but say goodbye to combustion-specific vernacular like spark plugs, cylinders, pistons, or liters as a measure of engine size (unless you get a plug-in hybrid). No more mufflers, no exhaust or timing belts. An EV has no use for miles per gallon, though carmakers and the EPA try to measure an electric car’s efficiency in miles per gallon equivalent as a way to compare them with gas cars.
As the months and years go by, you’ll appreciate a number of differences in the EV owner’s lifestyle. Drivers needn’t bother with remembering the pesky oil change every 3,000 miles, nor with worrying about the lifespans of thousands of moving parts that come with internal combustion. (On the other hand, today’s EVs burn through tires faster than gas cars do because of their weight and their performance.)
There’s a lot more to learn, of course. Just remember: The first time you bypass the gas station — with its stinky fumes and pesky commercials screaming at you — to refuel your car in the comfort of your home, you’ll wonder why you waited so long.
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Give the people what they want — big, family-friendly EVs.
The star of this year’s Los Angeles Auto Show was the Hyundai Ioniq 9, a rounded-off colossus of an EV that puts Hyundai’s signature EV styling on a three-row SUV cavernous enough to carry seven.
I was reminded of two years ago, when Hyundai stole the L.A. show with a different EV: The reveal of Ioniq 6, its “streamliner” aerodynamic sedan that looked like nothing else on the market. By comparison, Ioniq 9 is a little more banal. It’s a crucial vehicle that will occupy the large end of Hyundai's excellent and growing lineup of electric cars, and one that may sell in impressive numbers to large families that want to go electric. Even with all the sleek touches, though, it’s not quite interesting. But it is big, and at this moment in electric vehicles, big is what’s in.
The L.A. show is one the major events on the yearly circuit of car shows, where the car companies traditionally reveal new models for the media and show off their whole lineups of vehicles for the public. Given that California is the EV capital of America, carmakers like to talk up their electric models here.
Hyundai’s brand partner, Kia, debuted a GT performance version of its EV9, adding more horsepower and flashy racing touches to a giant family SUV. Jeep reminded everyone of its upcoming forays into full-size and premium electric SUVs in the form of the Recon and the Wagoneer S. VW trumpeted the ID.Buzz, the long-promised electrified take on the classic VW Microbus that has finally gone on sale in America. The VW is the quirkiest of the lot, but it’s a design we’ve known about since 2017, when the concept version was revealed.
Boring isn’t the worst thing in the world. It can be a sign of a maturing industry. At auto shows of old, long before this current EV revolution, car companies would bring exotic, sci-fi concept cars to dial up the intrigue compared to the bread-and-butter, conservatively styled vehicles that actually made them gobs of money. During the early EV years, electrics were the shiny thing to show off at the car show. Now, something of the old dynamic has come to the electric sector.
Acura and Chrysler brought wild concepts to Los Angeles that were meant to signify the direction of their EVs to come. But most of the EVs in production looked far more familiar. Beyond the new hulking models from Hyundai and Kia, much of what’s on offer includes long-standing models, but in EV (Chevy Equinox and Blazer) or plug-in hybrid (Jeep Grand Cherokee and Wrangler) configurations. One of the most “interesting” EVs on the show floor was the Cybertruck, which sat quietly in a barely-staffed display of Tesla vehicles. (Elon Musk reveals his projects at separate Tesla events, a strategy more carmakers have begun to steal as a way to avoid sharing the spotlight at a car show.)
The other reason boring isn’t bad: It’s what the people want. The majority of drivers don’t buy an exotic, fun vehicle. They buy a handsome, spacious car they can afford. That last part, of course, is where the problem kicks in.
We don’t yet know the price of the Ioniq 9, but it’s likely to be in the neighborhood of Kia’s three-row electric, the EV9, which starts in the mid-$50,000s and can rise steeply from there. Stellantis’ forthcoming push into the EV market will start with not only pricey premium Jeep SUVs, but also some fun, though relatively expensive, vehicles like the heralded Ramcharger extended-range EV truck and the Dodge Charger Daytona, an attempt to apply machismo-oozing, alpha-male muscle-car marketing to an electric vehicle.
You can see the rationale. It costs a lot to build a battery big enough to power a big EV, so they’re going to be priced higher. Helpfully for the car brands, Americans have proven they will pay a premium for size and power. That’s not to say we’re entering an era of nothing but bloated EV battleships. Models such as the overpowered electric Dodge Charger and Kia EV9 GT will reveal the appetite for performance EVs. Smaller models like the revived Chevy Bolt and Kia’s EV3, already on sale overseas, are coming to America, tax credit or not.
The question for the legacy car companies is where to go from here. It takes years to bring a vehicle from idea to production, so the models on offer today were conceived in a time when big federal support for EVs was in place to buoy the industry through its transition. Now, though, the automakers have some clear uncertainty about what to say.
Chevy, having revealed new electrics like the Equinox EV elsewhere, did not hold a media conference at the L.A. show. Ford, which is having a hellacious time losing money on its EVs, used its time to talk up combustion vehicles including a new version of the palatial Expedition, one of the oversized gas-guzzlers that defined the first SUV craze of the 1990s.
If it’s true that the death of federal subsidies will send EV sales into a slump, we may see messaging from Detroit and elsewhere that feels decidedly retro, with very profitable combustion front-and-center and the all-electric future suddenly less of a talking point. Whatever happens at the federal level, EVs aren’t going away. But as they become a core part of the car business, they are going to get less exciting.
Current conditions: Parts of southwest France that were freezing last week are now experiencing record high temperatures • Forecasters are monitoring a storm system that could become Australia’s first named tropical cyclone of this season • The Colorado Rockies could get several feet of snow today and tomorrow.
This year’s Atlantic hurricane season caused an estimated $500 billion in damage and economic losses, according to AccuWeather. “For perspective, this would equate to nearly 2% of the nation’s gross domestic product,” said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter. The figure accounts for long-term economic impacts including job losses, medical costs, drops in tourism, and recovery expenses. “The combination of extremely warm water temperatures, a shift toward a La Niña pattern and favorable conditions for development created the perfect storm for what AccuWeather experts called ‘a supercharged hurricane season,’” said AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva. “This was an exceptionally powerful and destructive year for hurricanes in America, despite an unusual and historic lull during the climatological peak of the season.”
AccuWeather
This year’s hurricane season produced 18 named storms and 11 hurricanes. Five hurricanes made landfall, two of which were major storms. According to NOAA, an “average” season produces 14 named storms, seven hurricanes, and three major hurricanes. The season comes to an end on November 30.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced yesterday that if President-elect Donald Trump scraps the $7,500 EV tax credit, California will consider reviving its Clean Vehicle Rebate Program. The CVRP ran from 2010 to 2023 and helped fund nearly 600,000 EV purchases by offering rebates that started at $5,000 and increased to $7,500. But the program as it is now would exclude Tesla’s vehicles, because it is aimed at encouraging market competition, and Tesla already has a large share of the California market. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has cozied up to Trump, called California’s potential exclusion of Tesla “insane,” though he has said he’s okay with Trump nixing the federal subsidies. Newsom would need to go through the State Legislature to revive the program.
President-elect Donald Trump said yesterday he would impose steep new tariffs on all goods imported from China, Canada, and Mexico on day one of his presidency in a bid to stop “drugs” and “illegal aliens” from entering the United States. Specifically, Trump threatened Canada and Mexico each with a 25% tariff, and China with a 10% hike on existing levies. Such moves against three key U.S. trade partners would have major ramifications across many sectors, including the auto industry. Many car companies import vehicles and parts from plants in Mexico. The Canadian government responded with a statement reminding everyone that “Canada is essential to U.S. domestic energy supply, and last year 60% of U.S. crude oil imports originated in Canada.” Tariffs would be paid by U.S. companies buying the imported goods, and those costs would likely trickle down to consumers.
Amazon workers across the world plan to begin striking and protesting on Black Friday “to demand justice, fairness, and accountability” from the online retail giant. The protests are organized by the UNI Global Union’s Make Amazon Pay Campaign, which calls for better working conditions for employees and a commitment to “real environmental sustainability.” Workers in more than 20 countries including the U.S. are expected to join the protests, which will continue through Cyber Monday. Amazon’s carbon emissions last year totalled 68.8 million metric tons. That’s about 3% below 2022 levels, but more than 30% above 2019 levels.
Researchers from MIT have developed an AI tool called the “Earth Intelligence Engine” that can simulate realistic satellite images to show people what an area would look like if flooded by extreme weather. “Visualizing the potential impacts of a hurricane on people’s homes before it hits can help residents prepare and decide whether to evacuate,” wrote Jennifer Chu at MIT News. The team found that AI alone tended to “hallucinate,” generating images of flooding in areas that aren’t actually susceptible to a deluge. But when combined with a science-backed flood model, the tool became more accurate. “One of the biggest challenges is encouraging people to evacuate when they are at risk,” said MIT’s Björn Lütjens, who led the research. “Maybe this could be another visualization to help increase that readiness.” The tool is still in development and is available online. Here is an image it generated of flooding in Texas:
Maxar Open Data Program via Gupta et al., CVPR Workshop Proceedings. Lütjens et al., IEEE TGRS
A new installation at the Centre Pompidou in Paris lets visitors listen to the sounds of endangered and extinct animals – along with the voice of the artist behind the piece, the one and only Björk.
How Hurricane Helene is still putting the Southeast at risk.
Less than two months after Hurricane Helene cut a historically devastating course up into the southeastern U.S. from Florida’s Big Bend, drenching a wide swath of states with 20 trillion gallons of rainfall in just five days, experts are warning of another potential threat. The National Interagency Fire Center’s forecast of fire-risk conditions for the coming months has the footprint of Helene highlighted in red, with the heightened concern stretching into the new year.
While the flip from intense precipitation to wildfire warnings might seem strange, experts say it speaks to the weather whiplash we’re now seeing regularly. “What we expect from climate change is this layering of weather extremes creating really dangerous situations,” Robert Scheller, a professor of forestry and environmental resources at North Carolina State University, explained to me.
Scheuller said North Carolina had been experiencing drought conditions early in the year, followed by intense rain leading up to Helene’s landfall. Then it went dry again — according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, much of the state was back to some level of drought condition as of mid-November. The NIFC forecast report says the same is true for much of the region, including Florida, despite its having been hit by Hurricane Milton soon after Helene.
That dryness is a particular concern due to the amount of debris left in Helene’s wake — another major risk factor for fire. The storm’s winds, which reached more than 100 miles per hour in some areas, wreaked havoc on millions of acres of forested land. In North Carolina alone, the state’s Forest Service estimates over 820,000 acres of timberland were damaged.
“When you have a catastrophic storm like [Helene], all of the stuff that was standing upright — your trees — they might be snapped off or blown over,” fire ecologist David Godwin told me. “All of a sudden, that material is now on the forest floor, and so you have a really tremendous rearrangement of the fuels and the vegetation within ecosystems that can change the dynamics of how fire behaves in those sites.”
Godwin is the director of the Southern Fire Exchange for the University of Florida, a program that connects wildland firefighters, prescribed burners, and natural resources managers across the Southeast with fire science and tools. He says the Southeast sees frequent, unplanned fires, but that active ecosystem management helps keep the fires that do spark from becoming conflagrations. But an increase like this in fallen or dead vegetation — what Godwin refers to as fire “fuel” — can take this risk to the next level, particularly as it dries out.
Godwin offered an example from another storm, 2018’s Hurricane Michael, which rapidly intensified before making landfall in Northern Florida and continuing inland, similar to Hurricane Helene. In its aftermath, there was a 10-fold increase in the amount of fuel on the ground, with 72 million tons of timber damaged in Florida. Three years later, the Bertha Swamp Road Fire filled the storm’s Florida footprint with flames, which consumed more than 30,000 acres filled with dried out forest fuel. One Florida official called the wildfire the “ghost” of Michael, nodding to the overlap of the impacted areas and speaking to the environmental threat the storm posed even years later.
Not only does this fuel increase the risk of fire, it changes the character of the fires that do ignite, Godwin said. Given ample ground fuel, flame lengths can grow longer, allowing them to burn higher into the canopy. That’s why people setting prescribed fires will take steps like raking leaf piles, which helps keep the fire intensity low.
These fires can also produce more smoke, Godwin said, which can mix with the mountainous fog in the region to deadly effect. According to the NIFC, mountainous areas incurred the most damage from Helene, not only due to downed vegetation, but also because of “washed out roads and trails” and “slope destabilization” from the winds and rain. If there is a fire in these areas, all these factors will also make it more challenging for firefighters to address it, the report adds.
In addition to the natural debris fire experts worry about, Helene caused extensive damage to the built environment, wrecking homes, businesses, and other infrastructure. Try imagining four-and-a-half football fields stacked 10 feet tall with debris — that’s what officials have removed so far just in Asheville, North Carolina. In Florida’s Treasure Island, there were piles 50 feet high of assorted scrap materials. Officials have warned that some common household items, such as the lithium-ion batteries used in e-bikes and electric vehicles, can be particularly flammable after exposure to floodwaters. They are also advising against burning debris as a means of managing it due to all the compounding risks.
Larry Pierson, deputy chief of the Swannanoa Fire Department in North Carolina, told Blueridge Public Radio that his department’s work has “grown exponentially since the storm.” While cooler, wetter winter weather could offer some relief, Scheuller said the area will likely see heightened fire behavior for years after the storm, particularly if the swings between particularly wet and particularly dry periods continue.
Part of the challenge moving forward, then, is to find ways to mitigate risk on this now-hazardous terrain. For homeowners, that might mean exercising caution when dealing with debris and considering wildfire risk as part of rebuilding plans, particularly in more wooded areas. On a larger forest management scale, this means prioritizing safe debris collection and finding ways to continue the practice of prescribed burns, which are utilized more in the Southeast than in any other U.S. region. Without focused mitigation efforts, Godwin told me the area’s overall fire outlook would be much different.
“We would have a really big wildfire issue,” he said, “perhaps even bigger than what we might see in parts of the West.”