This is NPR's life kit, I'm Mary Elstegara.

At the time of this recording, Hurricane Ian has made landfall in southwest Florida as a

category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour.

It's already caused massive power outages in Cuba, and experts predict that in Florida,

people could see storm surges of 18 feet.

The news made the life kit team think about a piece we did on driving in flooded conditions.

Now, it mostly focuses on flash floods, but it does offer useful information, given the intense

hurricane that we've seen lately. Here's the episode. Stay safe.

This is NPR's life kit. I'm Audre Wynne. Being from Houston, I am no stranger to water on the

roads. Neither is Moe's Bouchel. I have been out in the field trying to make these calls for

myself when I'm in the car trying to go report on these natural disasters, and I see this is

impossible. I should not try to go over this road. Moe's is a reporter with member station KUT.

According to his reporting, floods kill more Americans than nearly any other weather hazard,

with over half of those deaths happening on roads. Moe says flash floods can be particularly

dangerous because the change in water levels happens fast. It's not the type of thing where you see

the water levels rising on a river slowly kind of coming up. This is something that happens quickly,

dramatically, and it's the type of thing that people can really get caught in, almost unaware,

which is what makes it so dangerous. In this episode of Life Kit, how to stay safe in flash floods?

We'll walk you through why we're seeing an increase in flood events, what you should keep in your

car in the event of a flood-related emergency, and how to get from point A to point B safely if you

have to drive during heavy rains. So we know climate change is causing an increase in extreme

weather events. How is climate change impacting flooding specifically? We're getting more rainfall

...