Tampa Bay Times Wins 2022 Media Award for Rising Threat Series
This award acknowledges exemplary efforts on the part of media to increase information and/or awareness of flood issues with the general public.
2022 Winner: Tampa Bay Times
Forecasters and doomsday prognosticators have long labeled Tampa Bay among the riskiest areas in America for highly destructive hurricanes. The local newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, wanted to determine exactly how bad the danger is and why. And what can be done on an individual and community-wide level.
Environment reporter Zachary Sampson and data editor Langston Taylor spoke to more than 100 people: residents, professors, forecasters, insurance experts, scientists, lawyers, and local government officials. Working with researchers at the National Hurricane Center and data from various universities, they worked to model storm surge under current conditions and with potential sea level rise. They also compared flood maps to property records, building footprints and census records, analyzing millions of lines of data.
Weaving together these expert interviews, personal stories and data, Sampson and Taylor told a complicated, provocative story that played out in a three-part in-depth series called Rising Threat:
- Part 1 looked at lessons from Tropical Storm Eta, why flooding will get worse, and factors that determine whether a property floods
- Part 2 explained why it won’t take the “perfect storm’ to wreak havoc across Tampa Bay and provided readers with an interactive dashboard to see the effects of different storm scenarios.
- Part 3 provided lessons in Flood Risk 101, explained what is or could be done at the local government level, and offered readers tips on how they can minimize their flood risk. Readers could also use an interactive tool to see the risk for their particular neighborhood
