For details (including the link to visit the webinar), see the event’s page on StormSmart Connect.

A freeboard success story from FEMA:

Gail Cunningham Coen of Westport wishes that people would realize how easy it is to elevate your flood-prone house, especially when the Long Island Sound is just feet from your front door. “We didn’t even take the pictures off the wall,” Coen said, referring to the elevation of her home in 1994. “It took 3 days to jack it up, 3 days to build the foundation, and 3 days to lower it back down.”

After flooding destroyed her first floor in 1992, she decided she’d had enough of Mother Nature’s fury. Coen registered with the town for a grant through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) to help pay half the cost of elevating her home.

The rest of the article is here. You can read up about freeboard here.

“Hazard mitigation is very important and there’s a lot of value in looking at past events, but we know with climate change that we can’t use the past to project what the future will be like. For example, the flood that a community used to experience every 100 years may now be the 20-year flood.”

Nice Coastal Services Magazine article on Lewes, Delaware, where the city (with help from ICLEI and Delaware Sea Grant) successfully merged climate change adaptation into their hazard mitigation planning. One participant called it a “win-win, no-regrets strategy.” I expect we’ll be seeing a lot efforts like this in the future.

The Bay Citizen reports that while not everybody likes the regulation as passed, it has at least some support from both environmental and development interests. From the Bay Citizen:

“These policies discourage projects that would develop in dumb places, and it encourages tidal marsh restoration in undeveloped areas,” said David Lewis, executive director of the nonprofit Save the Bay.

Sounds like a good start.

You can download a PDF of the exact language passed here.

(Image: ground.zero)

Below is one example, see the C-HOST videos page for more. (Does your group or community want its own StormSmart.org site? Let us know.)

Coastal CHARM (Community Health And Resource Management)

You can read more about it on the Texas AgriLife Extension Service site.

[UPDATE] More Videos

(thanks, Heather Wade).

If your community is considering a nourishment project, this short article is worth a read.

“Feds reject Virginia Beach’s $15M offer to pay for sand,” (via the Pilot Online)

Image: kennymatic.

But Portland, Maine is choosing to address sea level rise head-on, and at least one councilman thinks it’s going to help draw businesses into the city.

From an article in Maine’s Business News Source:

“By raising the issue of sea level now and ways to respond to it, we’re not in a panic situation,” [Ed Suslovic] says. “We have the time to study it. . . Responding to sea-level rise will not scare people away, but will make Portland, if we can get ahead of this, more attractive to developers,” he says. “We can say, if you invest in our city, we will take the risks away from rising sea levels.”

1. A requirement that the town’s review process ensures that a proposed project won’t cause or worsen flooding on other properties (sounds like a good NAI approach). The reviewers must include consideration of future sea levels.
2. A provision allowing homeowners to apply for a permit to elevate homes higher than the 35-foot height limit currently in the regulations if they’re doing so to protect their properties from floodwaters.

Impressive. Thanks to StormSmart member Anne Herbst for kindly sharing the exact language: you can download the Hull bylaw amendment language here (PDF).