Rebuilding Strategy Can Serve as Model for Extreme Weather Events

The Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force has released its Rebuilding Strategy for stronger communities and a resilient region.  The strategy will help ensure that families, small businesses and communities are stronger, more economically competitive, and better able to withstand future storms.  The strategy extends beyond Sandy-affected states and is designed to serve as a model for communities across the country.

The Rebuilding Strategy contains 69 policy recommendations to “help homeowners stay in and repair their homes; strengthen small businesses and revitalize local economies; and ensure entire communities are better able to withstand and recover from future storms…”  Among the recommendations that will have the greatest impact on Federal funding is a process to prioritize all large-scale infrastructure projects and map the connections and interdependencies between them, as well as guidelines to ensure those projects are built to withstand the impacts of climate change.  Other recommendations are designed to improve our ability to withstand and recover effectively from future flood-related disasters across the country.

Several of the policies and principles developed by the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force were also incorporated into President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, which laid out a series of responsible and common sense steps to prepare communities for the impacts of a changing climate, including the need for the Federal government to make investments based on the most up-to-date information about future risks.