Occasional flooding, once considered normal, is now treated as a harbinger of doom.
Exactly!
I lived inb that area in the 60s, and more times than nbot, there were flooded streets in Alexandria in the spring, sometimes the Watergate complex would have water in their parking deck.
The Potomac (somewhat a tidal estuary at DC) would flood low areas often enough it only made a casual mentionb in the local news.
But, of course, we didn’t suffer from globull warming back then. /s