Growing Returns

Selected tag(s): Harvey

Following Florence, lessons from Harvey in recovery and resilience

With the impacts of Hurricane Florence continuing to unfold, coastal communities in the Southeast will soon be looking to other coastal areas, like Houston, as models for rebuilding resiliently. By doing so, they can speed their recovery and build back in smart ways – because that’s what resilience is all about.

For Houston, it wasn’t a single event that triggered discussions of resilience. Houston residents have faced a decade of intense storms and floods, with Hurricane Ike in 2008, the Memorial Day Flood of 2015, the Tax Day Flood of 2016 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Together, these repeat catastrophic events sounded the alarm that past approaches to managing flood waters are not sufficient.

Last week, I went to Houston to help decision-makers explore how the city can realize its aim to become more resilient. One year after Harvey, Houston is still learning from its experiences and building upon lessons learned from mega-disasters like Katrina and Sandy to move more rapidly into resilience-building phases. That’s good news, because with more frequent, intense weather events, communities across the nation are going to have to rebuild smarter.

Once communities and officials in the Southeast begin thinking about recovery from Florence and preparing to rebuild, there are four key lessons they can learn from Houston after Harvey that will ultimately help them strengthen the social, economic and environmental fabric of the region. Read More »

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4 ways to strengthen coastal communities’ resilience before the next storm

This blog was authored by Shannon Cunniff, with contributions from Kate Zerrenner.

The 2017 hurricane season sounded the alarm for coastal communities across the country and across the world that are facing increased exposure to powerful storms.

Nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population lives in coastal counties, where hurricanes are often the most destructive weather phenomena bringing rain, wind, waves and storm surge that too often result in significant loss of life. With a changing climate, we can expect more extreme weather. But we don’t have to expect the same levels of devastation.

There are steps we can take to decrease coastal communities’ vulnerability to storms, lower the risk of damaging floodwaters, and reduce the impacts associated with these disasters. Read More »

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