Article updated: 11/22/2012 8:26 AM

U.S. roads, airports unprepared for natural disasters

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Extreme weather isn't isolated to the coasts. Here flooding is seen threatening the Omaha Airport in Nebraska in June 2011.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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The nation’s lifelines — its roads, airports, railways and transit systems — are getting hammered by extreme weather beyond what their builders imagined, leaving states and cities searching for ways to brace for more catastrophes like Superstorm Sandy. Even as they prepare for a new normal of intense rain, historic floods and record heat waves, some transportation planners find it too politically sensitive to say aloud the source of their weather worries: climate change.