From Surviving to Thriving: State and Local Planning
This post is part of CPR's From Surviving to Thriving: Equity in Disaster Planning and Recovery report.
Three months before Hurricane Irma hit Florida, the state relaxed what many had considered to be one of the best building codes in the country. That wasn’t an anomaly. A report by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety found that many states along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts either lack building codes or have relaxed them in recent years.
When jurisdictions fail to plan, or plan too little, they squander the opportunity to avoid or mitigate significant problems. Houston and surrounding Harris County, have seen massive in-migration and development in the last 20 years on some of the least absorbent soils in the nation, but has not developed adequate stormwater infrastructure. Behind Orleans and Jefferson parishes in Louisiana, Harris County ranks third in the nation for the amount paid out by the National Flood Insurance Program over the last 40 years.
Hurricane Maria revealed Puerto Rico’s underlying vulnerability and poor resilience capacity, including its decrepit power system and lack of on-island basic necessities and services. That vulnerability was rooted in the island’s poverty. Looking ahead, the tragedy highlights …
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