Tag: Flooding

Floodplain Buyouts – History

Conrad, David R. Higher Ground: A Report on Voluntary Property Buyouts in the Nation’s Floodplains: A Common Ground Solution Serving People At Risk, Taxpayers and the Environment. National Wildlife Federation, 1998.  

NOAA – 2019 State of U.S. High Tide Flooding with a 2020 Outlook

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Sea level rise flooding of U.S. coastlines is happening now, and it is becoming more frequent each year. This flooding typically occurs when ocean waters reach 0.5 meter (m) to 0.65 m above the daily average high tide…

FloodFactor – Find your home’s Flood Factor – Tool for Determining Present and Future Flood Risk

https://floodfactor.com/ Flood Factor™ Defining American’s past, present, and future flood risk. Flood Factor is a free online tool created by the nonprofit First Street Foundation that makes it easy for Americans to finally find their property’s current and future risk of flooding,…

Hurricane Harvey: Texas at Risk Page

Hurricane Harvey: Texas at Risk, Texas General Land Office (2018) Recommendation #4 The state legislature should establish by state statute a Regional Building Code District (RBCD) with standard-setting authority in the high-risk hurricane region of Southeast Texas which would replace…

Takings Cases Relevant to Climate Change

Miller v. Campbell Cty., 722 F. Supp. 687 (D.Wyo. 1989) – Temporary forced evacuation from home is not a taking for 42 USC 1983 Harris Cty. Flood Control Dist. v. Kerr, 499 S.W.3d 793, 795 (Tex. 2016), reh’g denied (Oct.…

National Hurricane Center – Hurricane Harvey Report

National Hurricane Center – Hurricane Harvey Report (2018) Harvey started as a typical weak August tropical storm that affected the Lesser Antilles and dissipated over the central Caribbean Sea. However, after re-forming over the Bay of Campeche, Harvey rapidly intensified…

ARkStorm – The weather equivalent of the Big One for California

California – The Flood that Could Change Everything  California is spending billions to protect the millions at risk of a megaflood, but thanks to climate change, it’s too little too late. ARkStorm@SierraFront 2.0 This updates the USGS analysis below.

Why was the Louisiana Flood of August 2016 so severe?

See also: How Growth­-Focused Politics Helped Build Vulnerability in Louisiana’s Flood Zones Louisiana has a long history of major floods. These are driven by Mississippi River floods, extreme rainfall events, and hurricane surge. There was a heavy rain event in March 2016…

FEMA Proposes New Rules On Elevation for Rebuilding After Flooding

44 CFR Part 9 – Updates to Floodplain Management and Protection of Wetlands Regulations To Implement Executive Order 13690 and the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard; Proposed Rule Executive Summary The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is proposing to amend…

Louisiana Flood of 1983 – Suing the State for Causing Flooding

The mayor of Walker, a small town near Baton Rouge that flooded in the August 2016 flood, wants to sue the State of Louisiana for flooding caused by the recent expansion of federal highway I12. (While the Federal Department of…

FEMA Resources for Flood Resilient Construction

(original link) Flood Resistant Provisions of the 2015 International Codes® (May 2015) This document is a compilation of flood resistant provisions, prepared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), of the 2015 I-Codes (IBC, IRC, IEBC, IMC, IPC, IFGC, IFC,…

What is a 100/500/1000 year rain event?

See Also: What is a 100/500/1000-Year Flood Event? References Hershfield, D.M., 1961. Rainfall Frequency Atlas of the United States, Technical Paper No. 40. Weather Bureau, US Department of Commerce, Washington, DC. This started the 100 year rain event system. Although it…

Mississippi River Flood History

The record of Mississippi River floods goes back to the earliest explorers: High Flows and Flood History on the Lower Mississippi River Below Red River Landing, LA (1543­ – Present) and the paleoclimate records show megafloods greatly exceeding even the 1927 flood: Brown,…

State and Local Government Liability for Flooding

Jon Kusler, Government Liability and Climate Change: Selected Legal Issues Related to Flood Hazards (2016). Jon Kusler, Flood Risk In The Courts: Reducing Government Liability While Encouraging Government Responsibility (2011). Jon A Kusler, A Comparative Look at Public Liability for…

Sinking Cities – Global Cities Sinking into the Ocean

Sinking cities An integrated approach towards solutions (2013). In many coastal and delta cities land subsidence exceeds absolute sea level rise up to a factor of ten. Without action, parts of Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok and numerous other…

Cost of Hurricane Katrina Relief and Rebuilding

Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan, Mortgages and Disasters A Ticking Bomb? (2014) Hurricane Katrina Fact File – Insurance Information Institute (2010) Towers Watson, Hurricane Katrina: Analysis of the Impact on the Insurance Industry (2005) After Hurricane Katrina: How federal aid helped the…

Topographic Map Showing Louisiana Risks from Sea Level Rise

State of Louisiana—Highlighting Low-Lying Areas Derived from USGS Digital Elevation Data (large file) In support of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) disaster preparedness efforts, this map depicts a color shaded relief representation highlighting the State of Louisiana and depicts the surrounding areas…

Executive Order: Taking Action to Protect Communities and Reduce the Cost of Future Flood Disasters

Original Fact Sheet: Taking Action to Protect Communities and Reduce the Cost of Future Flood Disasters Executive Order – Establishing A Federal Flood Risk Management Standard And A Process For Further Soliciting And Considering Stakeholder Input FEMA Flood Risk Management Site…

New storm surge map predicts worst-case scenarios for south Louisiana

New storm surge map predicts worst-case scenarios for south La. The Worst Case Surge Map (PDF) This map is developed by running thousands of storm models on different tracks. No single storm would flood all of these areas, but they are…

Encroaching Tides – How Sea Level Rise and Tidal Flooding Threaten U.S. East and Gulf Coast Communities

Spanger-Siegfried, E., M.F. Fitzpatrick, and K. Dahl. 2014. Encroaching tides: How sea level rise and tidal flooding threaten U.S. East and Gulf Coast communities over the next 30 years. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists. Today scores of coastal communities in…

Reducing Coastal Risks on the East and Gulf Coasts – NRC

National Research Council. Reducing Coastal Risks on the East and Gulf Coasts. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2014. National Vision Needed to Achieve Comprehensive Risk Reduction Along Atlantic and Gulf Coasts WASHINGTON – A national vision for coastal risk…

U.N. – Sea-Level Rise in Small Island Nations

Sea-Level Rise in Small Island Nations – Up to Four Times the Global Average – to Cost US$ Trillions in Annual Economic Loss and Impede Future Development: Shift to Green Policies and Investment Critical Bridgetown, 5 June 2014 – Climate…

Louisiana SB 469 – Killing the Coastal Erosion Lawsuit

Morial v. Smith & Wesson Corp., 785 So. 2d 1 (LA 2001) This case reviews the LA law that retroactively stopped LA cities from suing gun manufacturers. It is a good discussion of the state police power and the state’s…

The Mississippi River Delta Cycle and Coastal Restoration

  Click here – Video of a presentation by Prof. Edward Richards to the LSU Mineral Law Institute on the delta cycle and the coastal erosion lawsuit. (1.3gb file – works best if you download it before playing. Otherwise it…