Hurricanes Helene, Milton force rethink of US disaster readiness
While the U.S. government spends billions on disaster relief, experts say more should be done to prepare for the next big storm.
- Flood maps often out of date, low accuracy
- Preference for disaster relief over prevention
- Disasters could lead to forward-looking policymaking
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A major factor that has compounded difficulties in the recovery is that the scale of the storm was so unprecedented that some areas were wholly unprepared to face the levels of water they saw. Flood maps drawn up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) also underestimated the risk in many spots that were hit the hardest, the Washington Post reported.
Flood maps themselves are developed only to about the 50th percentile level of confidence, said Joel Scata, senior attorney at the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
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But North Carolina lawmakers went in the other direction last year, passing legislation that could make it harder to update building codes in the state until the 2030s.
"It really put them at a disadvantage, not only in terms of making sure that the homes that are going to be built in the future are going to be safer, but also for obtaining federal assistance," said the NRDC's Scata.
Under FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) programme, for example, states compete for federal funding intended to help steel localities against future disaster risks.
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