USA: Despite new resilience programs, more needs to be done to protect people living, working in existing buildings — Opinion
By Albert J. Slap, president of Coastal Risk Consulting, LLC
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About 95 percent of the building stock in most communities is existing structures — already “at risk” for flooding. Without making these buildings more resilient, drastically increasing flood insurance uptake rates, and providing financial support, residents and businesses won’t be safer from floods, natural hazards and climate impacts in the near term.
To make the existing building stock more resilient, however, it will take more than better building codes and public infrastructure improvements. It will require new local, state and federal financial incentives, such as: risk mitigation investment tax breaks, grants to low income and elderly residents and small businesses, and low interest loans.
Unfortunately, we typically don’t see those approaches being implemented in recent efforts of local governments to address the impacts of climate change, such as sea-level rise, heavier rainfall and higher storm surges.
In most communities, new building codes and long-term capital projects may fail to keep communities viable and real estate values and tax revenues at current levels if individuals and small businesses cannot afford to protect and insure their properties now.
The “flood insurance gap” in the United States, where many people who are exposed to flood risk are not covered by flood insurance, is a huge part of the nation’s “resilience gap.”
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