SEPTEMBER 11, 2026
Stock image: Tropical Storm Imelda causes closure of Interstate 10 in Houston, Texas due to high water.
A meteorologist warned that a number of American cities are “in jeopardy” for major disasters, including some of the country’s most populated areas.
Meteorologist Todd Gross, username thetoddgross on TikTok, drew more than 319,000 views on a video in which he said many cities in the US will experience major flooding after the United Nations has “completely given up on containing global warming.”
‘Adaptation and mitigation’
Gross’ claim comes after the UN released a report calling our present climate moment “an era of 1.5°C overshoot” which examined “the choices that remain available.”
Previously, the goal of the UN in order to avoid the worst outcomes of climate change was to limit warming to below 1.5°C.
However, that amount of warming—the UN said—is “now widely assessed as unavoidable.”
The UN’s report called for the advancement of “adaptation and mitigation,” saying that while the overshoot appears inevitable, the situation “is not an argument for resignation, but rather for urgency to action.”
The Biggest Problem
According to Gross, “the biggest problem” in the United States will be New Orleans.
New Orleans, much of which famously sits below sea level and is protected by a levee system, was devastated by flooding in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina caused the cities floodwalls and levees to fail.
Gross pointed out that New Orleans will not be able to withstand the shorelines pushing inward by 62 miles by the year 2100.
“New Orleans is going to have to decide whether it will be relocated or not,” Gross said.
Similarly, Miami is in “big trouble”—Gross said officials will have to figure out whether they want to move or try to prevent water from flooding.
“It looks like to me they’ll probably start moving,” Gross added.
Gross added that Charleston, WV is in trouble, as well as Galveston, TX and Atlantic City, NJ.
Proactive Measures
Gross said that in lower Manhattan, flooding could cover 37 percent of the city by the mid-century due to “storm surge events.”
However, Gross pointed out, New York is one of the few cities making real preparations.
“Officials are already being proactive and are trying to rebuild the area around The Battery, and that’s going to help prevent some of that water from coming in,” Gross said.
“So New York is onto this, by the way, unlike some other cities.”
New York City has committed more than $2.7 billion in capital investments to its coastal resiliency planning, a strategy the city says will protect more than 100,000 residents, 300,000 jobs and 12,000 businesses.
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani recently announced the completion of the first phase of the plan—a $200 million project that rebuilt and elevated a portion of the wharf promenade in The Battery.
“We cannot treat climate resilience as something we can put off until tomorrow,” Mamdani said in June. “This project is a reminder that protecting New Yorkers requires action today.”
‘An entire ice age’
Gross left viewers with a dire warning, pointing out that when glaciers extended all the way down to New York City millions of years ago, the climate changed entirely due to just a few degrees difference.
“From what we’re talking about here, we’re going up 3 degrees, or roughly 3 degrees Celsius,” Gross said.
“It was only 6 degrees that caused an entire ice age.”
Courtesy: Newsweek
