From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is a daily.

Climate change has forced the residents and leaders of communities across the US to confront the most difficult question of all.

Is their community worth saving?

Today, my colleague, climate reporter Chris Flavell, with a case study of how two towns in the same state are answering that question.

It's Monday, October 11th.

The first time I've ever seen a climate change in the United States, I've never seen a climate change in the United States.

Chris, tell me about this reporting that you have been doing in North Carolina.

So my beat at the paper is looking at climate change and in particular, the effects of climate change on different parts of the United States.

So I'm always trying to find places that are already dealing with really difficult levels of vulnerability to flooding hurricanes, wildfires, you name it.

And I went to North Carolina because the flooding there and the hurricanes have been so bad for so long that you've got towns that are already facing what we think of as the climate future.

Storms that hit over and over again. I really want to know, after a few floods, what happens to a place?

And what determines if that place can survive and recover?

And what does recovery even look like?

And what does it look like for places they can deal with it?

And places that can't deal with these flooding or storms or fires?

So I went to North Carolina and in particular, I found two places that for me seem to capture the extreme disparity of what it means to try to adapt to climate change.

So where should we start? Which of these towns in North Carolina?

Let's start in Fairblaf. In the town just north of the South Carolina border, it's small, it's mostly working class, a lot of retirees, a lot of black residents.

It was hit hard by the economic downturn throughout the last few decades.

Didn't have a lot in terms of tourism or other industry.

What it does have is a really serious and persistent problem with getting flooded.

And what is the source of that flooding?

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