The heavy rains, strong thunderstorms and fierce tornadoes that have attacked the Midwest in recent weeks are a sign of the future, and communities will have to adapt to more frequent occurrences of extreme weather, experts say.
It could be an expensive process.
Ken Potter, a UW-Madison engineering professor who helped review the New Orleans hurricane protection system after Hurricane Katrina, said Wisconsin engineers will have to consider how to redesign structures to prevent flooding and events such as the draining of Lake Delton after extremely heavy rains.
(Several other UW-Madison experts are also quoted in this story.)