ResilienceCities can prepare for hurricane season by reforming shortsighted and outdated laws

By John Travis Marshall

Published 3 June 2016

In the past decade major storms have devastated U.S. coastal cities from Galveston to Atlantic City and New York. They also have ravaged inland capitals, including Baton Rouge, Richmond, and Montpelier. Ensuring that our cities have the legal infrastructure in place to build safer, more efficient, and more equitable neighborhoods and communities after storms is just as important as preparing homes and businesses to ride out those storms.

The 2016 Atlantic hurricane season begins on 1 June, and the public awareness campaign is fueling speculation. How many “named” storms will there be before the season ends on 30 November? Will any of them strike the United States? If they do, how strong might those storms be?

This annual hype produces more angst than answers. On the one hand, experts predict that this season will bring more tropical storms than the average year. On the other, these same experts concur that it is impossible to know whether any of the storms will make a United States landfall.

Nonetheless, U.S. cities need to prepare for storm season. And in doing so, they should think beyond winds, waves and storm surges.

Severe storms can alter cities’ physical landscapes and shut down vital systems like roads and utilities. They also expose ways in which a city functions poorly, including whether it is supported by weak legal and regulatory frameworks. One important step cities can take to prepare for future storms is to identify laws or legal vulnerabilities that impede post-storm recovery. Deficient compliance with existing law, or code provisions that do not reflect current storm threats, can seriously hinder rebuilding efforts after disasters strike.

Weak recoveries can cause as much suffering as storms
Hurricane experts properly remind families and businesses to prepare for storms by developing evacuation plans and double-checking their insurance coverage – especially flood coverage, which is not included in typical homeowner’s policies.

But local leaders in vulnerable regions often miss a critical point. Citizens may suffer more misery during an extended, poorly managed rebuilding effort than from a hurricane’s high winds, heavy rains and pounding surf.

Neighborhood revitalization programs that move slowly may prevent families from moving home. Twenty-two months after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, New Orleans was still waiting for federal funds to promote neighborhood recovery. Twenty-one months after Superstorm Sandy battered the mid-Atlantic coast in 2012, 20,000 New York City homeowners were waiting for funding to help rebuild their homes.

These delays have profound consequences. Elderly and low- and moderate-income families who do not have homeowner’s or flood insurance or significant savings have minimal reserves to travel back home after evacuations. Frequently they never return, remaining instead with relatives or friends in another city.