For those of you involved in flood insurance, here’s a summary from FEMA of the latest changes to the NFIP: On October 1, 2009, important changes to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) will take effect. There will be an increase in rates, the standard deductibles, and the basic insurance limits. These combined changes will […]
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FLOAT House Suggests New Approach to Floodplain Living
Posted on October 14, 2009
No matter what you’re trying to do, it rarely hurts to have Brad Pitt on your team. When Make It Right, a group founded by Pitt after he saw the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward, revealed its new FLOAT House last week, the announcement received a fair amount of media […]
Corps of Engineers Mandates Consideration of Sea Level Rise
Posted on October 13, 2009
In a new public document, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) has announced that it will immediately require all COE Civil Works projects in coastal and estuarine areas to consider sea level rise in all phases of its projects. The short document continues with specific explanations of which rates of sea level rise must […]
Town Offers Builders Permit Credit for Freeboard
Posted on October 12, 2009
The town of Hull, Massachusetts has just passed an innovative incentive program to encourage builders to elevate new and renovated structures above predicted floodwaters. The program offers applicants a $500 credit to be used towards building department permit fees if the builder elevates the structure at least two feet above the highest federal or state […]
Alabama and Texas are now StormSmart!
Posted on October 2, 2009
It’s with great pleasure that we welcome two more states into the StormSmart Coasts Network family: Texas and Alabama. Getting the state sites up and running takes some work at the state level, so we’re incredibly thankful for our state partners, including our friends in the Texas General Land Office, and in the Alabama Geological […]
The Costs of Not Preparing for Climate Change
Posted on September 30, 2009
Even the most conservative project puts sea level rise at 0.5 meter (1.6 feet) higher than current levels. The HRI Socio-Economics Group was asked by the Environmental Defense Fund, with support from the British Consulate General in Houston, to assess what the socio-economic impact might be for the Galveston Bay region of Texas. HRI Endowed […]
Improved Hazard Mitigation Assistance Guidance Released
Posted on September 29, 2009
FEMA has released a re-formatted version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) Guidance with internal links throughout the document. It is now possible to jump between sections in the document based on the internal links. The substance of the guidance remains the same, only the format has been changed. Kudos to […]
Incredible Photos: One Year After Ike
Posted on September 15, 2009
If you have a moment, take a look at this amazing series of photos published in the Boston Globe. The images are split into pairs, with one taken during or immediately after Ike, the other a year later, with the second being revealed after clicking on the first. Hopeful and sobering at the same time. […]
What if Historic Storm Hit Today? New Site Shows
Posted on September 15, 2009
It’s time to take a break and play with one of the latest hurricane damage prediction tools to ascend from a darkened computer lab to your desktop: the iCAT Damage Estimator. iCAT (a company providing catastrophe insurance) built this web-application to provide easy access to historical hurricane damage information. If you’d like a 10-minute introduction, […]
Five Things We Should Learn from Ike [EDITORIAL]
Posted on September 15, 2009
The Houston Chronicle published an editorial on Sunday sharing the five lessons they think we can learn from Texas’s experience with Hurricane Ike. The article is short and well worth a quick read. We particularly liked number four: Better and smarter building makes sense Hurricanes may not discriminate, but the damage they inflict on buildings […]