Live in a coastal area? Got flooding? Well, FEMA recently made two announcements about efforts to help communities with those issues. First, NOAA has trimmed its Coastal Community Planning and Development Course back to just two days. Designed to help local elected officials and related personnel, coastal resource managers, business leaders, developers, realtors, land use and hazard mitigation planners, floodplain and emergency managers, and concerned community residents and groups assess environmental, economic, and social consequences of development and redevelopment in their coastal communities, the course leverages the power of a visualization tool called CanVis. Second, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced efforts to re-map the Northeast states most impacted by that disaster. In addition to helping communities better understand local decisions impacting the Coastal Barrier Resources System (CBRS), it is anticipated the modernized maps will: "correct mapping errors affecting property owners and provide more accurate and accessible CBRS data for planning coastal infrastructure projects, habitat conservation efforts, and flood risk mitigation measures." More below:
(FEMA Bulletin, February 21, 2014)
(FEMA Bulletin, March 5, 2014)
Comment: As the nation continues the trend toward high density urbanization of its seaboards, efforts like these will be key to stopping multi-billion dollar damage bills for future coastal events. Let's hope community leaders and other decision makers leverage these opportunities to head off the reality that: "Failing to plan, is planning to fail".
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