I went to North Carolina. My car is now a swimming pool.

According to the staff at a major international hotel I stayed at in Wilmington, North Carolina, it was entirely my fault that a river joined me in my poor little Subaru. It turns out that I had failed to adequately prepare for the possibility of a freshwater swimming pool in my car.

I was in town to report on the record-breaking floods. Carolina Beach got dumped on—21 inches of rain—and the Cape Fear River, apparently not content to stay put, wandered into Wilmington’s streets. Scientists attribute this to climate change caused by society’s relentless devotion to fossil fuels.

Here’s the science: warmer air holds more moisture, so when it rains, it really rains. The kind of rain that makes you wonder if you should sell your car and buy a boat.

Private corporations profit wildly from this oil and gas addiction but seem increasingly less likely to take responsibility when it harms us and our property.

I paid to park in the hotel’s then-dry parking lot, thinking that was the responsible thing to do. The hotel said they had warning signs up about the potential for flooding. Yes, there were two. But they weren’t visible at night and I’m not an owl.

The hotel should have mentioned that the river might decide to check out my car’s interior during a 1,000-year rain event. They started to ignore my complaints, including that my room had a coffee maker but no coffee. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know…

As we face the increasingly wild behavior of nature going through a hot flash—floods, wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, poverty, disease, and all that fun stuff—it won’t be the corporations footing the bill. That pleasure will be ours as we pay more for home insurance, food, taxes, infrastructure, and just about anything else you can think of.

So, how do we prepare for disaster?

This week in The Meltdown, we’re exploring the ways technology can help us brace for the impact of Hurricane Helene and other climate disasters.

Hurricane Helene

As Hurricane Helene barrels toward Florida’s panhandle and south Georgia, expected to hit as a Category 4 Friday night, the clock is ticking for residents to prepare and evacuate. While many Gulf Coast locals have their go-to hurricane survival strategies—stockpiling canned food, flashlights, gas, and looking after those precious pets—there are some handy tech tools that could make a huge difference, even at the last minute.

First, weather apps like NOAA and AccuWeather can provide real-time updates on the storm’s path, wind speeds, and rainfall predictions from your phone. Emergency alerts from FEMA or local government platforms are another must, offering critical information about evacuation orders and other safety warnings. And if the power goes out, battery backups or portable solar chargers can keep your essential devices running.

But there’s much more tech that can help—everything from GPS apps for evacuation routes to smart home devices that monitor flooding remotely.

Want to know how electric vehicles or drones could help with your hurricane prep?

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What do the numbers say?

18 inches: amount of rainfall predicted to fall in the Appalachian region once Hurricane Helene makes landfall.

20 feet: height of the storm surge predicted from Hurricane Helene.

835 megawatts: power generated by restarting the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island to help power Microsoft’s artificial intelligence operations. That’s enough to power 700,000 homes every day.

Z: the climate action grade given by John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, to major greenhouse gas emitters at a major climate summit in New York earlier this week.

250: number of workers that will be part of President Biden’s environmental justice corps launched Wednesday.

Climate change is unpredictable

And so, as I sit here, drying out both my Subaru and my pride, I can’t help but think: if only the hotel staff had warned me that their parking lot moonlights as a riverbed, I might have had time to invest in a kayak.

But at least now I’m better prepared for the next 1,000-year storm. Until then, I’ll be keeping an eye on Hurricane Helene and my weather app because, as it turns out, the only thing more unpredictable than a river in your car is climate change. Stay dry and safe.

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See you next week.

Chris Harress