White House Holds Summit to Discuss Disaster Financing and Resilient Recovery
August 3rd, 2016 | By: Whitford Remer
On Wednesday the White House hosted a Forum on Smart Finance for Disaster Resilience to “highlight innovations in disaster mitigation and resilience finance, including emerging public-private collaborations with banking, insurance, and financial services sectors.” According to NOAA the U.S. has sustained 196 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. The total cost of these 196 events exceeds $1.1 trillion. Flooding alone caused for $260 billion in damages from 1980 to 2013. Just this week a 1-in-1,000-year flood event caused significant damage and tragic loss of life in the historic town of Ellicott City, Maryland. West Virginia, Texas, Illinois and South Carolina have all experienced significant flood events in the last three years. As the federal government, insurance companies and local recovery programs assist these communities, it’s important to consider tools that can be used to help reduce similar losses in the future. Resilient design standards, changes to insurance policies, and green bonds were all topics of discussion at the White House event. The idea of resilient recovery has become more common following Hurricane Sandy in 2012 when high wind and coastal storm surge devastated the Northeast at a cost of $67 billion. Redefining the role of the federal government in disaster recovery, properly balancing risk for private insurers and encouraging home owners to strengthen their homes (see the FORTIFIED Program) are all good starts. Key to ensuring that infrastructure is built safe and strong lies with the engineers who design it. However, the engineering profession has for too long relied on historical data for its design parameters, when a paradigm shift is needed to design for future conditions. With more than 50 percent of Americans living in coastal counties, key infrastructure (e.g. ports and energy facilities) and evacuation routes are increasingly vulnerable to impacts like higher sea levels, storm surges, and flooding. Inland communities face similar problems of riverine flooding, drought and forest fire. While there’s no one right answer, the White House forum demonstrated it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. With the right policies and building codes in place, combined with emergency planning, people can live and safely and comfortably in their community. The Department of Housing and Urban Development offers resources to help guide communities in the financing of high performing infrastructure. The days of free unhinged disaster response funds are likely behind us, and requiring communities to build stronger will keep us safer and ultimately save money and lives in the long run.ASCE Provides Expertise at Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Academies
August 4th, 2015 | By: Whitford Remer
Whit Remer, ASCE Government Relations staff, Sam Carter, Rockefeller Foundation, Bill Wallace, ASCE Member, Jessie Handforth Kome, HUD
How WRDA Can Reduce Risks and Costs of Future Floods
June 6th, 2013 | By: America's Infrastructure Report Card
In a Monday briefing, representatives from the Association of State Floodplain Managers, National Association of Flood and Stormwater Management Agencies, and the Nature Conservancy gathered to discuss the opportunities in the proposed WRDA bill to reduce flood risks and the potential damages from flood disasters. The nation’s dam and levee system is characterized by low system integration, having been constructed in an ad hoc manner, with little to no regard for the effects beyond the immediate applications. Because dams and levees are often constructed by localities to serve the needs of their constituents, there is no full register of all the existing dams and levees in the United States. Many of the known dams and levees are reaching or exceeding their designed operating age of 50 years, creating a pressing need for a National Levee Safety Program. Recently built dams are constructed to withstand the 100 year flood. However, according to Dr. Professor Mathias Kondolf of U.C.-Berkeley, a house with a 30 year mortgage built in a floodplain area has an aggregate 26 percent chance of being flooded over the course of the mortgage. Since they are living under the protection of a 100 year dam, houses in these areas often do not have flood insurance and have not taken steps to protect themselves, such as elevating the structure, from flood waters. Dr. Kondolf continued on to say that the aim of modern dams is to “filter out the small floods,” but that they do not protect from “the big ones.” In many areas historically prone to flooding and flood damage, the presence of protective structures has actually drawn increased levels of business and personal development. This risk intensification was borne out in areas damaged by Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Katrina when levees holding back ocean water failed. Floods, in their natural form, are healthy for and necessary parts of an ecosystem. In fact, without the floods of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers carrying silt and material, the Mississippi Delta around which New Orleans is built would not exist. Disaster arises when a dam or levee is built and people are allowed to build and live in what was the floodplain. When a flood does breach the wall, the costs can be astronomical. The hazards out flood disasters can be mitigated by analyzing and appropriately managing flood-vulnerable areas. By adopting policies known in the Netherlands as “room for the rivers,” the effects of floods on human activities can be mitigated. Some recommendations in accord with this are to set levees further back from the main flow of water, thus allowing any flood to proceed more naturally, or to designate areas of land that to be used as flood bypasses during times of high flood waters. However, the availability of these lands during dry times can induce development. All representatives present at Monday’s briefing agreed that, as a rule, “non-structural” approaches such as giving the river room, building houses above flood level, and creating natural drainage channels around cities are best suited to provide long-term protection. Ultimately, WRDA is an essential bill to plan and manage the nation’s waterways and flood preparedness. It is necessary to establish national guidelines for dams and levees, provide money to repair levees, and establish a comprehensive database of levees in the country. Cost-sharing, imposing per-project caps, and creating a national floodplain management plan will allow the legislation to provide the greatest amount of benefit.
Tags: congress, dams, levees, natural disasters, water infrastructure, water resources development act
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