How are America's cities preparing for the new normal of more frequent extreme weather?

Climate One Conversations with oil companies and environmentalists, Republicans and Democrats,

are recorded at the Commonwealth Club of California and hosted by Greg Dalton.

I'm Devon Strolovich. From fires and floods to droughts and hurricanes, recent years have brought a raft of extreme weather disasters,

costing the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars in damages. On today's show, we'll hear what some cities are doing to recover, rebuild, and prepare for the next megastorm.

Our guests are the mayors of three cities on the front lines.

Mayors are just about solving the problem.

That's what we do. We solve problems.

Steve Benjamin is mayor of Columbia, South Carolina.

In 2015, historic floods hit the Columbia area,

killing 19 people and causing more than $1 billion in damage. The city also endured heavy

winds and rain from Hurricane Florence in 2018.

We're already living with some of these climatic events. And so for us, it's not about

a debate as to whether sea level rise is a true or not true phenomenon

or to what extent it's going to affect us.

Francis Suarez took office as mayor of Miami in 2017 in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma,

which devastated South Florida and caused more than 100 deaths.

Coming from Houston, the energy capital of the world, we recognize that you can't just continue to do things the same old way.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner was in the national spotlight when Hurricane Harvey

dumped an unprecedented 50 inches of rain on the city.

We'll hear from all three mayors later in the program.

First, Greg sits down with Seattle Times reporter John Talton.

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