The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is overhauling its disaster rules in an attempt to end the cycle of rebuilding in areas that are unsafe. In the past when an event like a hurricane damages an area, FEMA would help rebuild communities and try to help them be more resilient than before the storm.
Following a new executive order, FEMA will be required to factor in climate change on future flood risks when it decides where and how to rebuild. Ideally, this will result in higher-elevated and better-fortified buildings, which would hopefully help break the continuous cycle of destruction and reconstruction that we’ve seen in the past which costs billions of dollars.
FEMA will now take sea level rise and intensified erosion into consideration. They will rebuild at least as high as the 500-year floodplain, or land that has less than 0.2% chance of flooding in a given year, in riverine areas, or sometimes higher for more essential infrastructure. This is a significant shift from previous measurements, which relied on historical data to estimate future flooding. Climate change has intensified, and the risk for flooding is much higher than in the past, and the new order for rebuilding guidelines will hopefully set people and infrastructure up for success.
FEMA estimates the stricter standards could cost them an additional $150 million over the next decade, but that is small in comparison to the $3 billion annual disaster spending from the agency. One thing to keep in mind is that this could have a trickle down effect to local governments, which often have to pay 25% of the cost when FEMA rebuilds in their community.
