Bracing for the storm
The attached report was co-authored jointly by members of the SmarterSafer Coalition.
Hurricanes, floods, fires, and heat waves resulting in millions of dollars of damage are no longer unusual events. They are now a fact of life, posing increased risk to life and property while driving up the costs of recovery. Both catastrophic and smaller-scale floods have been on the rise in communities throughout the country. The Western wildfire season has grown longer as warmer temperatures and longer periods of drought have become more common, and tropical storms and hurricanes have brought catastrophic damage to the U.S. over the past two decades. Disasters with a price tag exceeding $1 billion, previously limited to one or two per year, now occur at least five to 10 times per year. Recent payouts for events like Superstorm Sandy have shattered previous records, taking a toll both on the federal budget and on the National Flood Insurance Program, which is now more than $23 billion in debt.
As the frequency, severity, and cost of these disasters grows and federal spending on recovery rises, individuals, communities, and state and local governments must do everything possible to ensure they can withstand the next storm.
Our current natural disaster policy framework focuses heavily on responding to disasters, rather than putting protective measures in place to reduce our vulnerability and limit a disaster’s impact. This needlessly exposes Americans to greater risks to life and property and results in much higher costs to the federal government.
Over the past few decades, the financial burden of disaster response has fallen increasingly on the federal government. Federal funds are provided post-disaster, with few standards to define the parameters for federal intervention or rules to ensure funds are used in an efficient way. The problem is also evident in the chaotic passage of aid following a disaster, which often results in significant new outlays that have little to do with emergency relief.
Neither the states nor the federal government devote sufficient resources to preparing communities and citizens for these growing risks. The ready availability of government aid after a disaster actually reduces individual and community incentives to invest in mitigation and makes it less likely homeowners and businesses will insure their property for disaster.
These problems are also embedded in the National Flood Insurance Program, which has long used federal insurance subsidies to mask the true risks of flooding. This federal program now faces a multibillion-dollar debt to US taxpayers as a result of increasingly powerful storms and hurricanes.
Moreover, there is little coordination between federal, state, and local governments and agencies, as well as private businesses and industry groups, when it comes to preparing for and mitigating before a storm or other disaster.
Rather than continuing on this course, the federal government must begin overhauling current disaster policies.
This report identifies several reforms that could move the policy framework in a more sustainable direction.
Encourage Planning and Mitigation:
- Shift some federal resources to pre-disaster preparation to help communities plan for and mitigate risk.
- Provide disaster assistance on a sliding scale to incentivize communities to ramp up pre-disaster preparation, particularly through the use of natural infrastructure and smarter safer building.
- Ensure disaster spending is linked to concrete results, smarter safer building, and the mitigation of long term risks.
- Encourage the use of natural infrastructure such as marshes and dunes wherever possible to absorb storm surges and riverine flooding, and lessen the impact of waves.
- Explore the use of public-private finance options to pay for disaster mitigation.
- Ensure FEMA’s limited hazard mitigation funds are being spent on mitigation efforts that truly reduce disaster losses rather than expensive floodwalls, levees, and other so-called “grey infrastructure” that is within the purview of other agencies with larger budgets.
Fortify Infrastructure:
- Protect federal infrastructure with the development and enforcement of smarter and safer mitigation standards, including adoption of recently updated federal flood risk management standards.
- Require communities that access pre- and post disaster funds to have plans in place to rebuild or repair public infrastructure in smarter safer ways.
- Explore the use of private-sector financial tools such as insurance and catastrophe bonds to shield publicly owned infrastructure from catastrophic, taxpayer-funded liabilities in case of disaster.
Reform Flood Insurance:
- Phase in National Flood Insurance Program premiums to risk based rates and ensure flood maps are accurate and informed by the best available science.
- Provide subsidies only for those who truly cannot afford risk-based rates through a means tested, time-limited and transparent system outside of the rate structure.
- Encourage mitigation by expanding the Community Rating System and increasing the number of enrolled communities.
- Ensure that private sector insurance can compete to cover a greater share of risks in disaster-prone communities.
Ensure Equity:
- Mitigate the cost of flood insurance rate hikes with targeted, means-tested, temporary, and paid-for assistance that is outside the rate structure.
- Ensure low-income communities and households are able to fully participate in federal mitigation efforts and implement a clear plan to help lower-income communities bear the cost of planning, preparedness, and mitigation and make sure disaster relief flows to areas of greatest need.
Improve Coordination:
- Establish a central, high-level federal office to better coordinate emergency response and preparedness.
- Set clear roles for federal government, state and local governments, community organizations, and individuals when it comes to disaster activities ranging from planning to mitigation, response and recovery.
- Better bridge silos among advocates working in water quality, climate change, and floodplain management.
This report lays out a roadmap to a more rational approach to federal disaster policies that will save taxpayer dollars, protect the environment, and better prepare all Americans for the risks they face. With all signs pointing to a more dangerous, disaster-prone future, it is vital that the federal government starts preparing for these changes immediately.
