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 plain, alluvium, upper riverbanks, middle riverbanks, […]
Author Archive | Wesley Shaw
Fast, Perfect, and Cheap Disaster Response
Posted on January 20, 2012
“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 […]
Florida Takes Hard Look at its Future Climate
Posted on January 10, 2012
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 vulnerabilities […]
NOAA Releases New Storm Surge Brochure
Posted on January 6, 2012
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 […]
Animated Map of Extreme Weather Events
Posted on December 16, 2011
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 Map
Mississippi to be Dropped from the National Flood Insurance Program?
Posted on December 8, 2011
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 requires that […]
Making Insurance Seem Smarter
Posted on December 2, 2011
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. chaosinyourtown.com
New Reality: Innocous High Tide Floods Street [video]
Posted on November 29, 2011
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.
New Webinar: The Front Lines of Climate Change
Posted on November 22, 2011
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 […]
Army Corps of Engineers Releases Updated Sea Level Rise Procedures
Posted on November 16, 2011
The Army Corps of Engineers has updated its circular (“Sea-Level Change Considerations For Civil Works Programs“) spelling out how it will approach designing its projects to address sea level rise. If your community has any Corps projects, you’ll definitely want to have a quick skim (it’s shorter than it looks: most of the important stuff […]