Chesapeake Uncharted

Climate change is happening here and now in the Chesapeake Bay region. Here is a preview of Season One of “Chesapeake Uncharted.”

A thousand-year flood is supposed to happen only once every thousand years, right? Wrong! Ellicott City was struck by such storms in 2016 and 2018. Was it climate change?

Climate change is making it hotter. But communities of color are likely to feel the heat more. In Richmond, VA, solutions are being tested that could point the way for other American cities.

Wetlands are migrating to higher ground en masse. Barrier islands are losing the race to stay above water. And vast expanses of trees are transforming into "ghost forests." Hear how the natural world is responding to climate change in the Chesapeake Bay region.

Cities, from the small to the huge, prepare for a wetter future. We visit Alexandria, VA; Eagle Harbor, MD; and Norfolk to answer the question: Can we afford it?

Fighting sea level rise doesn't have to mean a huge construction project. Here, we examine policies and green solutions that could save coastal communities in the Chesapeake Bay region.

President Trump told the mayor of Tangier Island that the community has nothing to fear from climate change. Experts aren't so sure. 

What oysters in the sea and birds in the marsh tell us about our changing Chesapeake.

Rising waters are swallowing historic sites along shorelines, portending a future in which we've lost key pieces of our past.

A massive effort to clean up the Chesapeake Bay faces more problems with a hotter, stormier world because of climate change.

Agriculture is both a cause of and solution to climate change. Which will win out?

What matters most in the fight against climate change: individual action or collective action? Learn this and the best way to prepare a filet of blue catfish. 

Fifty years ago, “America’s Estuary” was beginning to show signs of ecological collapse. But outside of a handful of environmentalists and academics, few people took much note. When a seemingly harmless tropical storm charged up from the Gulf of Mexico, few people took much note of that either. But within a few wild and tragic days in June of 1972, Tropical Storm Agnes changed the way people thought about the Chesapeake Bay and the power of storms in the Mid-Atlantic. This is the story of how Agnes ushered in a dark new era for the Bay -- an era we're still living in.

How a radio station in central Pennsylvania defied official weather experts and delivered an accurate flooding forecast during Tropical Storm Agnes.

Tropical Storm Agnes tested the limits of flood barriers. In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, a wall wasn’t enough. This episode explores what the constant battle to hold back the Susquehanna River tells us about our current fight against climate change. 

Record-setting rainfall during 1972's Tropical Storm Agnes washed decades-worth of pollution into the Chesapeake Bay's fragile waters, damaging the environment for decades.

Environmental destruction wrought by 1972's Tropical Storm Agnes fanned the flames of the "Save the Bay" movement into a political wildfire in the Chesapeake Bay region. The storm's legacy is reflected in many current controversies, including the fate of the Conowingo Dam.

Tropical Storm Agnes reshaped the way the United States responds to natural disasters on a national scale. Here’s how.

As climate change fuels more Agnes-like storms, what will we do to protect vulnerable communities? Tangier Island in Virginia's portion of the Chesapeake Bay offers clues. 

The federally led campaign to save the Chesapeake Bay is officially 40 years old. This season, we turn to movers and shakers in the Bay sphere who weren't born when the effort got started. With the cleanup facing a critical inflection point, these younger voices -- we call them "wave makers" -- offer a tantalizing glimpse into what the future may hold.