Shifting the Timeline of Hazard Mitigation Plans

Rob Moore reflects on the lessons from the catastrophic flooding in South Carolina earlier this month, when the state caught the brunt of rains originating from Hurricane Joaquin. According to Moore, change will be necessary in the state's infrastructure and governance to prevent similar disasters.

"The toll in terms of loss of life and damages continues to climb. It will be some time before the flood waters recede and attention shifts to rebuilding, but rebuilding shouldn't just be about putting things back the way they were. The aftermath of an event like this provides an opportunity to think about what to rebuild, where to rebuild, and how to rebuild so we don't just duplicate the same vulnerabilities."

Specifically, adds Moore, the state should update its hazard mitigation plan, which assesses its "vulnerability to future natural disasters" and lays out the "actions it could take to be better prepared." Moore notes that the state last updated that plan in 2013, but relied on some typically inadequate methods for assessing risk. The key point: past data about storms will be inadequate to predict storm events in the climate realities of the future, and what we once thought of as 100-year or 1,000-year storm events will occur with much greater frequency.