Description
1) Mining Equitable Hazard Mitigation Projects in Ohio’s
Socially and Flood Vulnerable Communities
Dan Blanchard, Ohio EMA, dpblanchard@dps.ohio.gov
Co-presenters: None
Abstract: The Biden
Administration, under Executive Order 14008, has committed to investing in
disadvantaged, marginalized, and underserved communities through the Justice 40
Initiative, which has a goal of directing 40% of Federal investment to
disadvantaged populations. Two of FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA)
programs, Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) and Flood
Mitigation Assistance (FMA), were chosen to undertake the Justice 40 Initiative
to maximize the benefits that are directed to disadvantaged communities. The Justice 40 Initiative Guidance asks
agencies to consider appropriate data, indices, and screening tools to
determine whether a specific community is disadvantaged based on a combination
of variables. FEMA has selected the
CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index as the dataset to determine if a community is
disadvantaged and has incorporated the Index into the BRIC and FMA competitive
criteria in the 2021 and 2022 program cycles.
FEMA’s HMA division has identified barriers that may prevent underserved
communities from applying for hazard mitigation grants which include the local
cost share requirement and lack of capability when it comes to mitigation
planning and project development and management. Understanding that disadvantaged communities
may lack the resources to identify and develop HMA projects, Ohio EMA has set
out to identify where socially vulnerable populations may be experiencing flood
events with the aim to develop HMA projects and sub applications that benefit
disadvantaged communities. This
presentation will show OEMAs efforts in using State and Federal resources,
tools, and knowledge to identify potential HMA flood mitigation projects that
benefit socially vulnerable and disadvantaged populations in Ohio, review
Ohio’s past mitigation efforts to assess the level of benefits disadvantaged
populations have received, and present how the coordination with local
communities can proactively develop quality HMA sub applications. This presentation will review the tools and
datasets used by the Ohio EMA team to identify locations experiencing social
vulnerability and flood risk, which may be a useful model for other states and
communities to follow.
2) Planning for Resilience Investments: Prioritizing Areas of DC By Equity
and Risk
Andrea Limauro,
District of Columbia Department of Energy &
Environment, andrea.limauro@dc.gov
Co-presenters: Lily Cheng, lily.cheng@dc.gov; Katherine Duskin,
katherine.duskin@arcadis.com; Adam Blumstein, adam.blumstein@arcadis.com
Abstract: In the current
landscape of unprecedented amounts of Federal funding for resilience and flood
mitigation, it is essential for communities to understand which areas have the
greatest need for investment. The District of Columbia has developed a
proactive approach to identifying areas that should be prioritized for future
mitigation projects. Balancing considerations of flood risk, equity, and
potential for cascading impacts, this framework will allow the District to
channel planning and implementation funding to areas where it is most
needed. The DC Department of Energy
and Environment (DOEE) and Office of Planning (OP) developed a Resilience Focus
Area (RFA) Strategy as a guide for prioritizing future flood mitigation
projects. The District defined RFAs as areas of high flood risk where future
planning efforts should be focused to ensure resilience to flooding. Within the
RFAs, the District will encourage the implementation of neighborhood scale and
site-specific solutions, and will design guidelines and policies for a
climate-adaptive city. The RFA strategy aligns with other District policies and
plans centered around mitigation and adaption to climate change. DOEE and Arcadis evaluated the
characteristics of each RFA based on various metrics, grouped into five major
framework categories: Population, Flood Potential & Damages, Equity,
Critical & Resilience Assets, and Actionability. A prioritization matrix
was developed using various metrics calculated from GIS-based evaluation of
available data within these categories. The matrix was used to tabulate scores
within the six categories and to rank the RFAs. The goal of this presentation is to discuss
the unique approach and methodologies used by the District to rank the RFAs and
prioritize future flood mitigation projects. This presentation will summarize
how DOEE has engaged various stakeholders throughout the process, discuss data
driven strategies for development of the prioritization and scoring, and
outline how the final rankings will be used to inform future decision making.
3) The BRIC Wall: Capacity Gaps and FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grants
Anna Weber, Natural Resources Defense Council, aweber@nrdc.org
Co-presenters: None
Abstract: FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, now in its third grant cycle, represents an important investment in pre-disaster hazard mitigation. However, while FEMA leadership has touted BRIC as a key part of the agency’s shift to focus on equity—and while the agency has taken positive steps to improve program criteria and requirements—a lack of local capacity means that applying for funds is out of reach for many of the communities that most need assistance. This presentation will describe the results of a new analysis, which investigates the characteristics of counties with successful and unsuccessful BRIC proposals. We find that BRIC subapplications (even ones that aren’t selected) tend to come from areas with more expensive assets at risk, higher-capacity local governments, and fewer socially vulnerable communities compared to the nation as a whole. The presentation will summarize the equity and resilience implications for FEMA grant programs and discuss policy solutions to address the capacity gap.
Contributors
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Dan Blanchard
Dan is a Hazard Mitigation Specialist with the Ohio Emergency Management Agency. With over 6 years in public service at the Ohio EMA and Ohio EPA, Dan has gained experience in hazard mitigation grants, project management, public finance, environmental planning, and State Revolving Loan Funds. In his current role, Dan assists Ohio communities in applying for HMA opportunities and has served on the BRIC National Qualitative Review Panel in 2021. Dan received an undergraduate degree from Ohio Wesleyan University and a Master's Degree in City and Regional Planning from The Ohio State University. His professional interests include floodplain management, hazard mitigation, and urban resilience.
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Andrea Limauro
Andrea Limauro is a resilience expert and a city planner with over 15 years of experience leading community planning, sustainability, resilience and industrial strategies for local governments in Baltimore, MD and Washington, D.C. Most recently Andrea led the creation of the Resilience Focus Areas (RFAs) program for the District Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) which seeks to create community-tailored flood resilience plans for all the areas at risk of flooding in the Capital. Andrea is currently managing the creation of the city-wide RFA Strategy which seeks to prioritize areas for flood resilience planning. Andrea is also leading the completion of the first RFA plan for the SW and Buzzard Point communities in Washington, DC and its first phase of implementation through a combined local/FEMA budget of $24 million. Prior his work with DOEE and, prior to that, with the DC Office of Planning, Andrea was a community planner for the Western District of the City of Baltimore for four years, worked on re-entry programs for ex-offenders in Chicago’s west side, analyzed the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs for former child soldiers in Sierra Leone, and managed rural community development projects in war-ravaged Angola. Andrea holds a Master in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was the recipient of the Provost Award for Graduate Research. Andrea holds a BA in Politics and Sociology from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom and a Graduate Diploma in International Cooperation and Development from the University of Padua in Italy.
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Anna Weber
Anna Weber’s work seeks to incorporate the current and future effects of flooding, sea level rise, and other climate-driven hazards into local, state, and national decision-making and to ensure that adaptation policies benefit those on the front lines of climate change. Her areas of focus include home buyouts, the National Flood Insurance Program, and the distributional (in)equity of hazard mitigation grants. Prior to joining the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2018, she spent ten years at the Cadmus Group, where she supported U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contracts related to water infrastructure and environmental health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in geology and a master’s of public health with a concentration environmental health science and policy. She is based in NRDC's Washington, D.C., office.