By James L. Witt
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Across the United States, communities are realizing that this rise in extreme events can no longer be ignored. Communities are looking for ways to address these problems, for partners to help them strengthen their communities, and for leadership that will support action.
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In early 2019, Project Impact 2 will launch — this time backed by the private sector. This project is a nationwide campaign with the goal of engaging community leaders and the public to tackle future impacts of increasingly frequent and severe weather events and climate change.
This initiative will provide the vehicle to create a community coalition, establish a process and blueprint for action within the community, and facilitate access to resources to implement community risk reduction actions.
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Initiatives like Project Impact 2 can mobilize the private sector and philanthropic funding sources to develop a blueprint for reducing impacts of future disasters. However, the federal government must also renew its commitment to support communities as they work to reduce risk. Our newly elected Congress ushers in a government that will be divided along party lines, but Americans from Southern California to the Florida Panhandle, and everywhere in between, can plainly see the value of these programs.
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