How should we memorialize communities lost to floods?

I'm Dr. Anthony Lysowicz, and this is Climate Connections. In 1996, after suffering multiple floods, residents of the small community of Wakinda, Missouri packed up and moved away. Their homes were purchased and demolished as part of a government bioprogram. Today, a granite monument topped with a bell from Wakinda's Baptist Church memorializes the community that was lost, and honors the lives of those who left and started over elsewhere. The commemoration to them means that their stories are not forgotten. Police Zavar is an associate professor of emergency management and disaster science at the University of North Texas. I started visiting communities that had already gone through byouts to see what the landscapes were looking like. I was thinking, I really want to know how they're commemorating and remembering these past places. Zavar says in her research, she found very few examples where bought out properties had been memorialized on the landscape. But she says commemorating homes and communities that have gone through byouts can help former residents heal. Whether it's a tree or whether it's a plaque, a mural, whether it's people coming back and revisiting a site annually to celebrate their memories there, that's an important opportunity for us moving forward to remember where we've been and where we're going. Community Connections is produced by the Yale Center for Environmental Communication. To hear more stories like this, visit climateconnections.org.