Miami residents trudge through knee-high flooded streets in rubber boots as water pours over a vulnerable seawall, an apocalyptic scene reminiscent of the hurricane that battered Florida two months ago.

But the footage isn't part of a news report. It's a campaign video, supporting a referendum Tuesday that would allow the city to sell $400 million of bonds to finance projects that protect against the impact of climate change. “We cannot control nature, but we can prepare the city so Miami can be forever,” Mayor Tomas Regalado, a Republican, says in the advertisement.

Not long after Hurricane Irma's rains left parts of Miami submerged in brackish water — an event Regalado attributed to the Earth's rising temperature — the vote will mark a test of whether residents in one of the most vulnerable U.S. cities are willing to get behind public works needed to safeguard homes and businesses from the potentially turbulent decades ahead.