The National Capital region faces long-term threats from more violent storms and sea level rise, and the solutions are time-consuming, expensive, and require extensive collaboration. “Adapting to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an ultramarathon, it’s not a sprint,” says Jessica Whitehead of ODU’s Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience, lead author of the Fifth National Climate Assessment chapter on the Northeast region. “We all just got out of the gate.”