Not surprisingly, at ASFPM we’re focused on flood preparedness and how we can encourage our community members to understand and lower their flood risk. In recognition of National Preparedness Month, we have curated a collection of resources to help you and your communities be prepared. Some resources, like Reduce Flood Risk and the K-12 collection, are geared toward the general public and could be added to your outreach efforts. The remaining resources are intended to help professionals like you reduce flooding. 

ReduceFloodRisk.org (in English and Spanish) – This free, easy-to-use tool helps residents understand their risk and take action. With mitigation strategies tailored to their property type, plus insurance info and helpful resources, it’s built to put your community on a path toward understanding and reducing their flood risk. It was developed by the ASFPM Flood Science Center in consultation with various ASFPM committees, FEMA, and others.

ASCE 24-24 – Published by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the new ASCE 24-24: Flood Resistant Design and Construction reflects major updates to flood-resistant design requirements and plays a key role in how communities can mitigate future flood risk. ASFPM members can access it for free. 

K-12 Flood Education Resources – Dive into a tailored collection of flood education tools and activities spanning kindergarten through high school. From riverine and coastal flooding to flash flood and stormwater topics, this library has resources that make learning meaningful and fun. 

Understanding and Managing Flood Risk: A Guide for Elected Officials – This three-part guide was created by the ASFPM Flood Science Center to help elected officials gain a comprehensive understanding of the range of choices that are available as they evaluate how to prepare for and respond to flood events in their communities. 

The Cost of Inaction: What the Texas Floods Reveal About Our Risk – We know what works. But inaction — or worse, deliberate rollback of protections — has once again left communities vulnerable. As Dr. Gilbert White wrote in 1942: “Floods are acts of God, but flood losses are largely acts of man.” Unfortunately, we have yet to fully learn that lesson. To help prevent tragedies like the one we saw in Texas, ASFPM offers six recommendations to strengthen our nation’s approach to flood risk management.

The Camp Gap: What We Can Learn from the Camp Mystic Tragedy – The latest column by ASFPM Executive Director Chad Berginnis shares five lessons learned from the Camp Mystic flood event — from closing regulatory gaps and improving warning systems to practicing emergency plans and asking the right questions. 

Urban Flood Hazards: Challenges and Opportunities – Developed by ASFPM’s Stormwater Management Committee, this discussion paper explores the challenges of urban flooding, outlines concepts related to planning and mitigation to reduce future flood losses, and provides recommendations at the local and national scale to address urban flooding in communities nationwide.

We encourage you to use and share these tools during National Preparedness Month—and throughout the year—to help strengthen resilience in your community.

The post September is National Preparedness Month: Flood Risk Tools for You and Your Community first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

We can’t control the weather, but we can prepare for it. Flood insurance helps lower the out of pocket damage costs, allowing you to rebuild your life and community faster.

This hurricane season, FEMA has rolled out a social media outreach campaign to promote the value of flood insurance across throughout the Coastal-Atlantic United States. This year’s campaign is centered on following your instincts to protect your nest, your home, and the life you have built. Reaching your communities where they are on social media can help encourage them to purchase an extra layer of protection this hurricane season, and beyond. We are asking you to please support the campaign and share these messages on your community’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other social media accounts!

Social media assets are available online at Agents.FloodSmart.gov/hurricaneseason-LI. Each message has a custom graphic and a message tailored to each platform’s content limits, encouraging the reader to act now, protect their nests, and learn more about what flood insurance policy is right for them.

Here are the FEMA YouTube links to the video ads:

• Follow Your Instincts This Hurricane Season – YouTube   (15 seconds English)
• Follow Your Instincts This Hurricane Season – YouTube  (30 seconds, English)
• Follow Your Instincts This Hurricane Season – YouTube  (15 seconds, Spanish) 
• Follow Your Instincts This Hurricane Season – YouTube  (30 seconds, Spanish) 

Please join the conversation by using #HurricaneSeason. Visit Floodsmart.gov/hurricane-season/get-flood-insurance to learn more about this year’s campaign and how flood insurance can help protect your communities this hurricane season. Homeowners, renters, and business owners can all benefit from this extra layer of protection.

Reduce Flood Risk

As you work with property owners looking to make informed decisions around the actions they can take to lower their risk of flooding, Reduce Flood Risk can help. Developed by ASFPM with financial support from FEMA, this interactive website empowers people to protect themselves and their most valuable asset. 

To get started, people can go to ReduceFloodRisk.org, answer a series of five simple questions, and receive a detailed list of mitigation options recommended to reduce flood risk for their specific property type. The curated results can be filtered and sorted by key attributes, such as cost, complexity, and level of required maintenance.

In addition to its decision-support engine, ReduceFloodRisk.org features a variety of resources to help property owners and renters better understand flood risk, flood insurance, financial assistance options, and who to contact with any questions they have about flood mitigation. The site is completely free and users do not need to create an account to gain access to the resources.

As flooding and hurricane season ramps up, consider making ReduceFloodRisk a part of your efforts to raise awareness of flood mitigation options in your community.

The post Outreach Materials for Hurricane Season first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.

Over the past decade, local government agencies and floodplain management professionals have taken a strong interest in identifying, mapping, managing, and mitigating urban flood hazards and, ultimately, reducing flood losses in unmapped areas. Where these flood-prone urban areas have been identified, strategies to address localized flooding typically come with very high capital improvement costs or feasibility challenges that are increasingly difficult to overcome.

Urban Flood Hazards: Challenges and Opportunities explores the challenges of urban flooding, outlines concepts related to planning and mitigation to reduce future flood losses, and provides recommendations at the local and national scale to address urban flooding in communities nationwide.

Developed by ASFPM’s Stormwater Management Committee, this discussion paper:

• Provides an overview of the challenges associated with urban flood hazards
• Offers a framework to assess, identify, plan, mitigate, and manage urban flood hazard areas to reduce future flood losses
• Suggests recommendations on the local and national scales to assist communities with identifying and mitigating urban flood hazards

Urban Flood Hazards: Challenges and Opportunities focuses on one specific area of urban flooding, mainly areas outside of riverine and coastal flooding zones that are inundated due to surface runoff, i.e. areas where excess stormwater runoff exceeds the conveyance capacity of pipe and roadway systems, resulting in flooding that inundates structures and prevents safe access for emergency vehicles and personnel. The paper is intended for local stormwater and floodplain managers, but also serves as a valuable reference for all engineering and planning professionals within the floodplain and stormwater community.

“Floodplain stewards and stormwater managers face significant challenges in communicating urban flood risk due to the technical challenges and high costs associated with mapping these complex hazard areas. Even when the hazard has been mapped, they may also face internal and external communication challenges in getting the public, senior government leadership, and politicians to acknowledge the associated risk. An additional communication challenge is overcoming a lack of willingness to make flood map information available to the public because of concerns regarding negative perceptions of flood insurance requirements, adverse impacts to property values, and public calls to fix the problem immediately in the absence of adequate government resources.”

The 34-page discussion paper is divided into five sections, with the majority of pages dedicated to options for addressing the issue. Here the authors offer a detailed framework for confronting the myriad of issues around urban flooding while explaining the specific challenges related to mapping urban flood hazards. The paper also offers detailed advice on how to develop a comprehensive risk communication, education, outreach plan.

Urban Flood Hazards: Challenges and Opportunities concludes with six recommendations, which are explored in greater detail in the paper.

1. Identify and Map Urban Flood Hazard Areas
2. Manage Urban Flood Hazard Areas at the Local Level
3. Communicate Urban Flood Hazards and Risk
4. Develop Local Building Construction Standards
5. Employ Multi-Generational Approaches to Implementing Improvements
6. Identify Flood Mitigation Funding for Urban Flood Inundation Areas

As the paper notes, Gilbert White’s maxim that “Floods are ‘acts of God,’ but flood losses are largely acts of man” is particularly instructive for planning. Water finds a way to flow (down the path of least resistance), regardless of whether that area is developed or in a natural state. Human-scale disasters most frequently occur in areas where land is developed.

Download Urban Flood Hazards: Challenges and Opportunities

The post Urban Flood Hazards: Challenges and Opportunities first appeared on Association of State Floodplain Managers.