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Best Practices for Coastal Louisiana Manual not just for Louisiana

The Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) recently released the Best Practices Manual for Development in Coastal Louisiana website. What's novel about this site is that it provides strategies for creating sustainable and resilient coastal communities based on "geotypes" (pick from chenier... »read more

Fast, Perfect, and Cheap Disaster Response

"The federal government is a support role. So if you think FEMA responds to disasters or that we're in charge, first of all, we're never in charge, we're always in support, and and we work for a lot of different folks." FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate delivers a great TED talk on the federal role in disasters, what we're doing wrong when we respond to them... »read more

Florida Takes Hard Look at its Future Climate

The State University System of Florida has released Climate Scenarios: A Florida-Centric View, a serious look at what future climate conditions might mean for the sunshine state. From the intro: The purpose of this document is to provide an informed opinion on future climate scenarios relevant to Florida. It offers a primer on Florida’s ... »read more

NOAA Releases New Storm Surge Brochure

NOAA's National Hurricane Center Storm Surge Unit has put together a new brochure explaining the what storm surge is and how to best measure it. There's nothing here on how to prevent losses, but the before/after shots (on page 3) should motivate some people to think about how we need to plan for it. Added to our Sources for Outreach Materials page.... »read more

Animated Map of Extreme Weather Events

Just an animated map showing last year's extreme weather events around the country. Amusing if you don't think about it. Very worrisome if you do. Extreme Weather... »read more

Mississippi to be Dropped from the National Flood Insurance Program?

A troubling article from the Bolivar Commercial spells out why Mississippi may be removed from the National Flood Insurance Program as early as this spring. The issue is over a state law prohibiting counties and cities from enforcing building codes, including local floodplain management ordinances, against qualified hunting and fishing camps. The NFIP... »read more

Making Insurance Seem Smarter

Pretty clever marketing: FloodSmart.gov should do something like this for floods and flood insurance. Note, this requires FLASH and a decent Internet connection (or a lot of patience). Happy Friday, everybody.... »read more

New Reality: Innocous High Tide Floods Street [video]

Delaware Sea Grant has released a great short video showing how a little (offshore) storm plus a high tide can affect a seemingly safe street. Take a short break and watch. Expect a lot more like this as we see more sea level rise.... »read more

SSPEED Releases Update on Ike Dike Feasibilty

The Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center (a university based research and education organization), has released Learning the Lessons of Hurricane Ike: Preparing for the Next Big One (PDF). In it, you can find what the researchers think are the best ways to protect the Houston Ship Channel from another major storm.... »read more

New Webinar: The Front Lines of Climate Change

Next Wednesday (November 30th) at 2PM CST the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium will be hosting what sounds like an interesting webinar on how climate change is impacting Bangladesh (for those who don't know, that nation is often cited as one of the countries most susceptible to negative climate change impacts). The talk will be given by Taibur... »read more

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