Who will stop the flood?

Missouri has tornadoes, which are conjured and over within half an hour. They also don't usually put 7 million people out of power. So hurricanes are cinematic, for better or worse, and I've been glued to the New York Times throughout this storm.

This op-ed on oysters and bank stabilization was a surprising nugget among the crisis coverage.

Just as corals protect tropical islands, these oyster beds created undulation and contour on the harbor bottom that broke up wave action before it could pound the shore with its full force. Beds closer to shore clarified the water through their assiduous filtration (a single oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons of water a day); this allowed marsh grasses to grow, which in turn held the shores together with their extensive root structure.

See also: this prescient, month-old article on New York City's "resilience strategy" for storm flooding.