The Toll a ‘1,000-Year Storm’ Takes on a Black Family

By Willy Blackmore | Word In Black (WIB) – No one was expecting that much rain. When more than three inches fell on San Diego in just six hours, it took the Southern California city by surprise. It was a Monday, people were at work and at school, and the only reason that Krystle Reed knew that the very unexpected was happening back at her house in the hilly Encanto neighborhood was because her in-laws, who have been living with the Reeds, were at home.  As the rain fell and ran down the hill, the storm drains on their street were overwhelmed and started to back up. The drain in her neighborhood’s yard collapsed into a yawning sinkhole, and water began to fill that yard and then hers too — and kept filling and filling until the Reeds’ home was brimming with at least four feet of water. The deluge is said to have been& a thousand-year storm, but thanks to& climate change, we’re seeing more and more of these improbable rainfall events happening far more than every century or millennia. Flooding is becoming almost routine in New York City,& where over 7 inches of rain fell in parts of...