Ten Across Conversations

Negotiators representing seven states, 30 tribes, and Mexico are running out of time to agree on new rules to guide sharing of Colorado River water before a federally mandated deadline next fall. Failure to do so would forfeit water allocation authority to the Bureau of Reclamation, and costly state and tribal litigation would be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.  

Potable water supply for much of the West is not all that’s at stake in managing demands on the river’s supply. “Deadpool” levels in the reservoirs at Lake Powell and Lake Mead would result in inability of the Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams to generate hydropower. The establishment of new post-2026 operating guidelines among the river’s competing stakeholders is a complex undertaking, consuming much of the region’s attention and effort.  

However, an analysis published last week by six leading scholars in the basin warns that immediate, substantial action to conserve water is needed. Their study suggests that if the coming year’s patterns of water supply and use mirror past years, then by the time any hard-won new guidelines are in place, the basin may already be in serious trouble.  

In this episode, study author Kathryn Sorensen and water policy expert Sarah Porter provide perspectives on the near-term science, human behavior, and potential solutions relating to conditions around the Colorado River.  

Relevant articles and resources  

“Analysis of Colorado River Basin Storage Suggests Need for Immediate Action” (Jack Schmidt, Anne Castle, John Fleck, Eric Kuhn, Kathryn Sorensen, Kathrine Tara, September 2025)

“As the Colorado River slowly dries up, states angle for influence over future water rights” (The Conversation, August 2025)  

“Inside the ‘revolutionary’ new Colorado River proposal” (E&E News by Politico, July 2025)

Colorado River Shortage: What This Means for Arizona & What Comes Next (Arizona Water Blueprint)  

“The Colorado River needs some ‘shared pain’ to break a deadlock, water experts say” (KUNC, May 2025)  

“Floating Pools & Grand Bargains” (Kyl Center for Water Policy at Morrison Institute, April 2025)  

Relevant Ten Across Conversations podcasts  

Checking in on Tense Colorado River Negotiations with Anne Castle and John Fleck  

Understanding Groundwater Risks in the Southwest with Jay Famiglietti  

Experts Share Insights on the Ongoing Colorado River Negotiations  

Why Everyone Should Care About the Colorado River with Rhett Larson  

Getting Honest About the Colorado River Crisis with Anne Castle & John Fleck  

The Future of Water is Here: Are We Ready?  

Credits
Host: Duke Reiter
Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith
Music by: Johan Glössner and Daniel Gunnarsson
Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler  

About our guests

Sarah Porter is the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy, and professor of practice in ASU’s College of Global Futures. Sarah previously served as the Arizona state director of the National Audubon Society and led their Western Rivers Project. She also serves on Governor Katie Hobbs’ Water Policy Council, the City of Phoenix’s Environmental Quality and Sustainability Commission, and several other community boards. In 2023, she was named to the Arizona Capitol Times Powerlist as an “Unsung Hero,” in recognition of her work on Arizona water policy.  

Kathryn Sorensen is director of research at the Kyl Center for Water Policy and a Senior Global Futures Scientist at Arizona State University’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory. Kathryn is also a member of the Colorado River Research Group and board member on the Water & Health Advisory Council. Kathryn previously served as director of City of Phoenix Water Services and director of the Water Resources Department at the City of Mesa.

Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast from Florida to Louisiana in 2005 and is still the costliest disaster in U.S. history. New Orleans, a city resting below sea level, is uniquely dependent on engineering for its safety. On August 29th, nearly every defense seemed to fail, allowing storm surge to flood 80% of the city.  

As terrible as the storm itself, arguably, were the human failures that contributed to what happened to New Orleans during and after Katrina—flaws in planning, infrastructure, governance, and social equity.  

Yet change is possible. And in the intervening years, New Orleans has become known globally as a leader in preparedness, adaptation and recovery knowledge.  

New Orleanians are weary of being praised for their resilience. In the past five years alone, the metro area has faced 17 federally declared national disasters—four times the national average. And the challenge of long-term adaptation can be especially overwhelming, especially at a time when consensus seems nearly impossible. But there is no substitute for New Orleans. Its people, environment, culture, and history add up to an inimitable home worth sustaining.  

In this episode, longtime friend of Ten Across Jeff Hébert joins us to talk about the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina—the recovery process and the lessons in it that continue to resonate for the future of all our communities. Today, Jeff is chief executive officer for HR&A Advisors. In the years after Katrina, as a New Orleans native and urban planner, he served as a director with the Louisiana Recovery Authority and as a senior official in Mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration. He was also among the first chief resilience officers appointed under The Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities program.  

Ten Across founder Duke Reiter talks with Jeff about how his experiences with the long game of adaptation and recovery in New Orleans and beyond have shaped his perspective and his work.  


Relevant articles and resources
 
 “Trump’s former FEMA chief opens up — and says administration is ‘delaying’ aid” (Politico, August 2025)  

 “20 years after Katrina, New Orleans’ levees are sinking and short on money” (Grist, August 2025)  

 “Coastal communities restoring marshes, dunes, reefs to protect against rising seas and storm surges” (AP News, August 2025)  

 “Government to keep sharing key satellite data for hurricane forecasting despite planned cutoff” (AP News, July 2025)  

 “Forced to Move: An Analysis of Hurricane Katrina Movers” (U.S. Census Bureau, June 2011)  

 “Race, socioeconomic status, and return migration to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina” (Population and Environment, December 2009)  

Related Ten Across Conversations podcasts 
 
 Katrina’s 20th: Vann R. Newkirk II on What We Owe Climate Disaster Survivors Today

 Governing Through Times of Crisis and Opportunity with Mayor Mitch Landrieu — Part One

 Governing Through Times of Crisis and Opportunity with Mayor Mitch Landrieu — Part Two  

 Investing in New Orleans’ Future with GNOF CEO Andy Kopplin  


Credits

Host: Duke Reiter

Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith 

Music by: Hanna Lindgren, Lupus Nocte, Hushed 

Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Maya Chari, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler  


About our guest  

Jeff Hébert is chief executive officer and partner at HR&A Advisors, an urban development consulting firm with offices across the U.S., whose mission is to ensure their clients succeed in creating equitable and resilient communities. Prior to joining HR&A, Jeff served as Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the City of New Orleans’ first deputy mayor, chief administrative officer, and chief resilience officer. He also served as executive director of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, Vice President of Adaptation and Resilience for The Water Institute, and director of community planning for the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Twenty years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina—still the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history—made landfall in New Orleans. Many mark the storm as the transition point to a new age of extreme weather impacts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency more than tripled the size of its Disaster Relief Fund going forward as a result of Katrina and two other major hurricanes in 2005.  

Yet two decades later, disasters of this scale have become so common that FEMA has been on track to run out of its Disaster Relief Fund for the second year in a row, unless Congress issues an emergency aid package.  And in this anniversary week, more than 180 FEMA employees have endorsed a letter submitted to members of Congress, urging their defense of the agency's continued operations in spite of the President's stated intent to eliminate or severely curtail its funding. The 36 co-signers that opted to use their names have been placed on administrative leave until further notice, The New York Times reports.  

This is the context for today’s conversation with the host and co-creator of the Peabody Award-winning podcast miniseries “Floodlines”, Vann R. Newkirk II.  Vann traces the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina as a demonstration of the ways a community's risk exposure and recovery assistance are often determined by race and class.  These disparities became nationally visible both in the immediacy of the disaster and long after, as some New Orleanians were able to return and recover their homes and livelihoods, while for many others such recovery still remains out of reach.    

Duke and Vann also look at Hurricane Katrina’s invigoration of a national and federal movement for environmental justice. Now that this work is being targeted and dismantled, they discuss how to maintain focus in the face of such dramatic reversals and the implications for the next major storm.   

Be sure to tune in again next week when we look further into the post-Katrina recovery period with one of its primary leaders, HR&A President and CEO Jeff Hébert, who formerly served as first deputy mayor for the City of New Orleans, executive director of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, and as one of the first chief resilience officers appointed under Rockefeller’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative.  

Relevant content from Vann R. Newkirk II 

Listen to the “Floodlines” podcast series, including “Part 9: Rebirth”, released five years later  

“Why the EPA Backed Down” (The Atlantic, September 2024)  

“What America Owes the Planet” (The Atlantic, June 2024)  

“The Coronavirus’s Unique Threat to the South” (The Atlantic, April 2020)  

“Climate Change is Already Damaging American Democracy” (The Atlantic, October, 2018)   Relevant articles and resources  

“Banks accounts for $20B climate program frozen amid Trump administration scrutiny” (The HillI, February 2025)  

“The Color of Coronavirus: COVID-19 Deaths By Race and Ethnicity in the U.S.” (APM Research Lab, October 2023)  

“An Exodus Unlike Any Other: Why Half the People in This Community Moved Away After Hurricane Katrina” (ProPublica, December 2022)  

“Flooding Disproportionately Harms Black Neighborhoods” (Scientific American, June 2020)  

“Hurricane Flooding and Environmental Inequality: Do Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Have Lower Elevations?” (Socius, 2017)  

“Remembering Katrina: Wide racial divide over government’s response” (Pew Research Center,  August 2015)  

Related Ten Across Conversations podcasts  

Catherine Coleman Flowers: A National Voice for Rural and Unincorporated America  

Financing Our Future: Justice40’s Legacy Beyond November  

Envisioning a Just Future for All with Dr. Robert Bullard  

Credits:
Host: Duke Reiter
Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith
Music by: Hanna Lindgren, Lupus Nocte, Hushed
Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Maya Chari, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler  

About our guest:
Vann R. Newkirk II is a senior editor at The Atlantic and is host and co-creator of the 2021 Peabody Award-winning podcast miniseries “Floodlines,” which documented Hurricane Katrina, and of the 2023 podcast miniseries “Holy Week”. He is an ASU Future Security Senior Fellow, Fellow of the New America Political Reform Program, and 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. In 2024, Vann was named Journalist of the Year by the Washington Association of Black Journalists.

Recent Ten Across Conversations episodes have considered how current changes in staffing, research, and responsibilities within federal agencies like FEMA and NOAA may affect disaster readiness and response at the local level. Many cities find themselves pressed to rethink how their own limited resources might secure the information and support necessary to address the growing risks they face.  

Collaborative regional networks are proving to be one way to achieve much greater returns on investments of local time and funds. The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative (MRCTI) has become an outstanding example of this type of work. Formed in 2012, this innovative coalition of 105 mayors from cities along the main stem of the Mississippi has spearheaded programs in vital policy areas including clean water, sustainable economies, and climate resilience.  

Among their most interesting efforts from a Ten Across perspective is the pilot parametric insurance policy MRCTI is developing with global reinsurer Munich Re. When realized, this program would allow member cities to opt in to a customized, shared insurance pool that could rapidly fund local emergency response based on predefined environmental trigger events.  

Listen in as City of Gretna Mayor and MRCTI Louisiana Chair Belinda Constant joins MRCTI’s executive director, Colin Wellenkamp, and Ten Across founder Duke Reiter to discuss how collaboration can help defend against more frequent and costly risks.  

Relevant articles and resources  

“Trump moves to end NASA missions measuring carbon dioxide and planet health” (PBS, August 2025)  

“Trump, who called FEMA ‘slow,’ is making people wait months for help” (E&E News by Politico, May 2025)  

“As Mississippi River towns experience whiplash between drought and flood, mayors look to new insurance model” (The Lens, November 2024)  

Relevant Ten Across Conversations podcasts  

Why the Ten Across Geography Needs FEMA with Dr. Samantha Montano  

Beyond the Forecast: TV Meteorologists Weight in on Climate Challenges  

Past and Future Resilience Along the Mississippi with Boyce Upholt  

Want to Understand the Future of Climate Resilience? Look to the Gulf Coast  

Credits:
Host: Duke Reiter
Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith 
Music by: Jakob Ahlbom and Lennon Hutton
Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler

About our guests

Rep. Colin Wellenkamp is the executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative and an elected member of the Missouri House of Representatives.  His extensive career in the legal and policy fields has been focused on advocating and advancing public interests through improving local government functions and the activity of the business world. Colin has a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Saint Louis University, a J.D. from Creighton University School of Law, and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Sustainable Development Law from George Washington University Law School.    

Mayor Belinda Constant is the mayor of the City of Gretna, Louisiana and the first woman elected to the city council or mayorship. Elected as mayor in 2013, she has led a variety of resilience initiatives for the city, including the Gretna 2030 plan and Stormwater Master Plan. She became a member of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative shortly after it was formed in 2012 and has served as co-chair and current Louisiana Chair of the organization.

Local broadcast meteorologists have become more vocal about the evidence of climate change in their communities’ weather in recent years. While some have encountered dramatic pushback, others have found audiences that are eager to understand the causes of recent record-breaking disturbances in familiar weather patterns.  

In Phoenix, meteorologist Amber Sullins—formerly a climate skeptic, herself—uses her role to inform an increasingly concerned audience about not only the risks but the climate change factors contributing to the unprecedented extreme heat they experience.  And far to the other end of the Ten Across region in Miami, Michael Lowry is putting his background in meteorology and emergency management to work on multiple platforms, explaining both the immediate dangers and the greater, complex drivers of worsening tropical storms.  

But even as more meteorologists like Amber and Michael embrace their unique ability to use the immediacy of local weather to connect the public to the larger context of climate change, there is growing concern about loss of critical federal weather and climate data on which their forecasts are based.  Severe cuts are being made at federal agencies—particularly within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the sources of nearly all U.S. weather information. A proposed budget change for 2026 would reduce resources even further.  

Listen in as Amber, Michael, and Ten Across founder Duke Reiter discuss these changes and the implications for both forecast accuracy and public safety as the climate continues to warm.  

Relevant links and resources:  

Read Michael’s column in the New York Times  

2017 Bloomberg video report on Amber's climate coverage

"After DOGE cuts, National Weather Service gets OK to fill up to 450 jobs" (The LA Times, August 2025)

“US Weather Boss During ‘Sharpiegate’ Nears Return to a Shrinking Agency” (Bloomberg, August 2025)  

“After 7 Decades of Measurements From a Peak in Hawaii, Trump’s Budget Would End Them” (The New York Times, July 2025)  
 
“Nearly half of National Weather Service offices are crticially understaffed, experts warn” (PBS News, April 2025)  

“Woking Paper: The Value of Improving Hurricane Forecasts” (The National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024)  

“One sent tsunami alerts. Another flew with ‘hurricane hunters.’ Both were just fired from NOAA” (NBC News, April 2025)  

Relevant Ten Across Conversations podcast episodes:  

Past, Present, and Future Climate Reporting with NPR’s Sadie Babits  

AI Series: AI-Powered Extreme Weather Modeling is on the Horizon  

NOAA Meteorologists Reflect on This Year’s Historic Atlantic Hurricane Season  

Credits: 
Host: Duke Reiter 
Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith
Music by: Jakob Ahlbom and Helmut Schenker
News clip played in the introduction courtesy of ABC15 Arizona and Amber Sullins
Headline image courtesy of WPLG Local 10 and Michael Lowry
Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler  

About our guests
Amber Sullins is chief meteorologist at ABC15 Arizona and anchors the nightly forecast. She is also vice chairman of the University of Arizona Hydrology and Atmospheric Science Board, a six-time Emmy-winner, and guest anchor on Good Morning America. Amber began her career as a broadcast meteorologist with KVIA-TV in El Paso.  

Michael Lowry is the hurricane specialist and storm surge expert for WPLG-TV in Miami, Florida. He previously held roles at the National Hurricane Center as a senior scientist leading the development of groundbreaking new storm surge forecasts and warnings, and at the Federal Emergency Management Agency as disaster planning chief responsible for overhauling the master hurricane response plan after the deadly 2017 season. You can follow his in-depth forecasts and coverage on the “Eye on the Tropics” Substack.

The global climate has undoubtedly changed. Earlier this year, Copernicus, one of the most trusted weather models in the world, calculated that global average temperatures have increased by 1.4°C (2.5°F) since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This seemingly slight increase has had an outsized effect on weather patterns, challenging our ability to predict and prevent disasters resulting from more extreme weather.  

Most Americans are at least somewhat concerned about global warming, the documented solution to which is greenhouse gas reduction. Yet just this week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to rescind its central scientific basis for climate-related regulation.  And with so much competing for our attention, it is easy to imagine that relatively few people will take note of such a policy decision—let alone clearly understand the larger implications and how to respond.  

In this episode, NPR's Sadie Babits discusses her new book Hot Takes: Every Journalist’s Guide to Covering Climate Change, written to equip all of us (journalists or not) to take part in critical public discourse about climate science and policy.  

Listen in as Sadie and Ten Across founder Duke Reiter talk about the development of this book, and how journalists can and must rise to the challenges present in the political and media landscape today.  


The video format of this discussion will be released 8.7.25. Subscribe to the Ten Across newsletter at 10across.org/subscribe/ to receive it as soon as it is available.

Related links:  

“Funding cuts will hit rural areas hard. One station manager explains how” (All Things Considered, July 2025)  

“Congress rolls back $9 billion in public media funding and foreign aid” (NPR, July 2025)  

 “Trump EPA moves to repeal landmark ‘endangerment finding’ that allows climate regulation” (Associated Press, July 2025)  

“There’s a Race to Power the Future. China is Pulling Away” (The New York Times, June 2025)  

Relevant Ten Across Conversations podcast episodes:  

Getting Personal About Climate Change with Sammy Roth  

Reporting on Climate Change When it’s at Your Doorstep with Allison Agsten 10X Heat Series:

Covering Climate Change as It Unfolds with Jeff Goodell  

Journalists and Writers on Breaking the Existential Story of Our Lives—Climate Change    

Credits: 

Host: Duke Reiter Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith

Studio support and video crew: Louie Duran and Utkarsh Byahut

Music by: Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler    

About our guest

Sadie Babits is the senior supervising climate editor for National Public Radio and author of “Hot Takes: Every Journalist’s Guide to Covering Climate Change.” She was previously professor of practice and the sustainability director for the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University. Sadie was a freelance journalist, editor, and consultant for many years and is a former board president of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

This episode deals with some mature topics. Listener discretion is advised.  

This week, we’re bringing you the second half of our discussion with author E.A. (Elizabeth) Hanks about her new book, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road. Elizabeth undertook her journey along the iconic Interstate 10 transect to better understand herself and the nation we inhabit—and her experience is a perfect subject for a Ten Across conversation.  

In part two, Ten Across founder Duke Reiter and Elizabeth pick up where they left off at the end of the first installment, crossing from Texas into Louisiana on her way to her favorite stop of all—New Orleans. Tracing the length of the Gulf Coast to her destination in Florida, they explore what this diverse set of places revealed along the way about family, country, and culture.  

Relevant Ten Across Conversations podcast episodes and other links:  

A Road Trip Along Interstate 10 with Author E.A. Hanks - Part One  

Governing Through Times of Crisis and Opportunity with Mayor Mitch Landrieu - Part One and Part Two  

A Fight for Better Air Quality in CA’s Inland Empire Reveals a Need for American Innovation  

Catherine Coleman Flowers: A National Voice for Rural and Unincorporated America  

Fewer Roads Could Mean More Freedom with Megan Kimble  

Envisioning a Just Future for All with Dr. Robert Bullard   thewhoweareproject.org  

“Trump Told Park Works to Report Displays That ‘Disparage’ Americans. Here’s What They Flagged” (The New York Times, July 2025)  

“The Costs of the Confederacy” (Smithsonian Magazine, 2018)  

Listen to The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road on Spotify or other audiobook services

Credits:

Host: Duke Reiter
Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith
Music by: Ramin
Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler  

About our guest:

E.A. Hanks is the author of The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road. She is a former editorial assistant for Vanity Fair and news editor for The Huffington Post. Her culture reporting has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Time Magazine, and The Awl, among others.

Earlier this year, E.A. Hanks—also known as Elizabeth—made her literary debut The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road. Considering its framing, it is no surprise that the book was recommended to Ten Across by many. The 10 documents Elizabeth's re-creation of a fraught childhood road trip taken with her mother in 1996, traveling Interstate 10 from end to end. In retracing her mother’s path, she reflects on the diverse nature of the region itself and its influence on events both large and small.  

What results is, in significant part, a series of provocative questions about identity—personal, political, and place-based. For example, what makes Texas and California so different, and at the same time so equally vivid in the American imagination? Why do people around the world recognize so much of this singular transect? Is New Orleans the American city? How long can Phoenix exist as it has? How do we define a border? Finally, and most importantly, how do such places inform our future—as individuals and as a nation?  

In this special two-part interview, Elizabeth Hanks and Ten Across founder Duke Reiter attempt to answer all the above and find many new questions and revelations along the way. Keep an eye out for part two, which will be released wherever you get your podcasts on July 24.  

Relevant Ten Across Conversations podcasts:  

“Addressing Historical Inequities in Our National Infrastructure, Then and Now”  

“Asking the Right Question: What Texas and Arizona Can Tell Us About the Country”  

“Why Phoenix is the ‘Most American City’ with George Packer”  

Listen to “The 10” on Spotify, or other audiobook services

Credits:
Host: Duke Reiter
Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith
Music by: American Legion  
Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Rae Ulrich and Sabine Butler

About our guest:
E.A. Hanks is the author of The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road. She is a former editorial assistant for Vanity Fair and news editor for The Huffington Post. Her culture reporting has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Time Magazine, and The Awl, among others.

Previous episodes in our AI series have focused on the evolving features of artificial intelligence itself: its potential to democratize education and to improve city planning and weather forecasting. In this final installment, we examine its costs: the accelerating resource demands of AI and other data-intensive technologies.  

Maya Chari, this year’s Ten Across + APM Research Lab data journalism fellow, recently investigated the true water and energy costs associated with data center facilities in the Phoenix metro area— now on track to become the second largest market in the U.S. Though granular industrial data can be difficult to come by, Maya located a report submitted by Microsoft to City of Goodyear officials, stating that one of their proposed data centers would use as much potable water each year as 670 homes. Amplified across the 140 other data centers currently dotting the state of Arizona alone, the scale of such consumption becomes clearer.  

As data centers rapidly multiply in response to market demand around the world—often preferring arid places like the water-stressed U.S. Southwest—critical questions are pressed about whether and how such development can be sustained.    

In back-to-back conversations in this episode, we’ll hear from experts involved in managing and reducing the impact of the physical infrastructure behind our digitized lives. Bobby Olsen, chief planning, strategy, and sustainability executive at the Arizona electric and water utility Salt River Project, describes planning to meet staggering levels of projected energy demand. And Dr. Kerri Hickenbottom, principal investigator at University of Arizona’s Hickenbottom Environmental Research Lab, discusses working in concert with the public and private sectors to improve water reuse strategies and overall efficiency of data center operations.  

To support our I-10 neighbors' disaster recovery in Central Texas this week:  Kerr County Flood Relief Fund  

Related articles and resources:  

“At Amazon’s Biggest Data Center, Everything is Supersized for A.I.” (The New York Times, June 2025)  

“Are Data Centers Depleting the Southwest’s Water and Energy Resources?” (American Public Media Research Lab, February 2025)

 “Thirst for power and water, AI-crunching data centers sprout across the West” (Stanford University, April 2025)  

“’I can’t drink the water’ —life next to a US data center” (BBC, July 2025)  

“Meta is building a new data center in Louisiana—and this Senate committee wants to know why it’s being powered by gas (exclusive)” (Fast Company, May 2025)  

“Phoenix ranks as the second-largest data center market in the U.S.” (AZ Big Media, March 2024)  

Credits:  
Host: Duke Reiter  
Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith  
Music by: Curved Mirror, Hushed, and From Now On  
Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler  

About our guests:
Bobby Olsen is associate general manager and chief planning, strategy and sustainability executive at the Salt River Project, a public power and water utility in Arizona. Bobby has more than 20 years’ experience in energy planning. He also serves on the board of Arizona Forward, a non-profit leading the charge for sustainability in Arizona.  

Kerri Hickenbottom is an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of Arizona and is principal investigator in the Hickenbottom Environmental Research Lab. Her research focuses on investigating the technical, environmental, and economic potential of novel, engineered systems for resource recovery and reclamation of waste streams.

Over the course of a calendar year ending in May 2025, the United States absorbed nearly $1 trillion in damages due to extreme weather. This amount, representing 3% of U.S. gross domestic product, was driven by rising insurance costs and a series of disasters primarily concentrated in the Ten Across geography, such as Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the fires in Los Angeles.  

More than ever before, timely and detailed forecasts are needed to properly prepare—and in some cases to evacuate—communities ahead of such extreme events. Leaders across sectors are further in need of advanced weather modeling to support larger-scale mitigation and adaptation efforts.  

The data that influence such public and private decision-making mainly stem from the National Weather Service’s six billion daily weather observations. The NWS recently shed 600 of its 4,000 positions, prompting a public warning from five former agency directors that understaffing could undermine the quality and delivery of forecasts, potentially putting many Americans at greater risk.  

At the same time, advanced artificial intelligence capabilities are contributing to a trend toward increased commercial ownership of U.S. weather forecasting. However, today's guest, Dr. Amy McGovern, points out that while today's AI can create and curate efficient weather models better than a conventional supercomputer, its monitoring capabilities are not comparable to the collective experience and proficiency of NWS scientists.  

Listen in as Ten Across founder Duke Reiter and Dr. McGovern, an expert in the integration of AI in meteorological science, explore the current forecasting landscape and how the emergence of private sector AI-powered modeling is influencing its evolution.  

Related articles and resources:  
Read about Brightband’s Extreme Weather Bench, led by Amy McGovern  

NOAA stops tracking cost of extreme weather and climate disasters (UtilityDive, May 2025)  

Most Americans use federal science information on a weekly basis, a new poll finds (NPR, May 2025)

Former Weather Service Leaders Warn Staffing Cuts Could Lead to ‘Loss of Life’ (The New York Times, May 2025)  

Stabilizing ‘operations,’ the National Weather Service hires again after Trump cuts (NPR, June 2025)  

Lawmakers revive bipartisan forecasting bill (E&E News by Politico, June 2025)  

Credits:
Host: Duke Reiter 

Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith  

Music by: Parallax Deep  

Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler  

About our guest:  
Amy McGovern is the director and principal investigator for the NSF Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography. She is also a Lloyd G. and Joyce Austin Presidential Professor in the University of Oklahoma’s School of Meteorology and leader of the Interaction, Discovery, Exploration, and Adaptation (IDEA) lab, and lead AI and meteorology strategist for the AI-powered customized weather forecasting startup, Brightband.