Grappling with the Health Consequences of Floods: Hurricanes, Monsoons, and Heavy Rains Have Researchers Studying How to Prevent the Diseases That Often Follow

In early September 2017, when the rains from Hurricane Harvey finally subsided in Houston, Texas, Seth Pedersen loaded up his pickup truck with sample collection kits, waders, rubber boots, buckets, and a small aluminum fishing boat. On that particular day, Pedersen, a second-year graduate student in environmental engineering at Rice University, was-along with a fellow graduate student-on a mission to test the water in homes flooded by Hurricane Harvey. He was looking specifically for E. coli bacteria, chemicals, heavy metals, and other pathogens (Figure 1).