Enhanced Community Resilience Index (E-CRI) informs Santa Rosa County Disaster Recovery Comprehensive Plan
Relevance:
Gulf Coast community leaders need a simple, inexpensive and effective method of determining if their communities will reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning after a disaster. MASGC was a leader in developing the original Coastal Community Resilience Index (CRI), which is a self-assessment tool that has been widely used and benefited communities throughout the country. MASGC is now coordinating and leading an overall effort to enhance the original CRI by adding three new elements. One of those elements is adding mapping and visualization tools to the CRI.
Response:
In 2018, the project team, made up of people from the Gulf region Sea Grant programs, NOAA’s Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaboration Team and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, developed the participatory mapping and visualization tool element of the enhanced CRI. The project team pilot tested this new approach with numerous communities in Alabama, Florida and Louisiana. One of the pilot tests was with Santa Rosa County, Florida.
Results:
Santa Rosa County, Florida, used the results of the pilot testing of the CRI with mapping and visualization elements to support the development of a county-wide Disaster Recovery Comprehensive Plan. Additional impacts likely will occur as the enhanced CRI transitions from pilot testing of the three new elements to finalization and distribution of the updated tool.
Recap:
Santa Rosa County (Florida), with assistance from Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC), other Gulf of Mexico Sea Grant programs, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and NOAA’s Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaboration Team, used information gained during an Enhanced Community Resiliency Index (E-CRI) pilot testing workshop to develop a county-wide Disaster Recovery Comprehensive Plan. (2018)
MASGC is a leader in promoting regional cooperation in the Community Rating System
Relevance:
The National Flood Insurance Program’s Community Rating System (CRS) provides a holistic approach to hazard mitigation and community resilience that requires communities to go beyond minimal standards. Communities that participate in CRS can reduce the cost of flood insurance premiums and develop activities to implement to increase resilience. The more activities a CRS community can successfully implement, the greater the likelihood a community can improve its CRS class and obtain additional flood insurance savings.
Response:
The Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC) worked with floodplain managers through partnerships with two CRS user groups: Coastal Hazard Outreach Strategy Team (C-HOST) in Mississippi and the South Alabama Flood Engagement Team (SAFE-T). MASGC developed flood outreach programming, which helped refine floodplain management practices in the two states. It also provided direct technical assistance to individual communities on CRS activities. For example, MASGC helped Biloxi implement a Program for Public Information (PPI) for CRS points.
Results:
By facilitating C-HOST events, MASGC coordinated targeted outreach projects for multiple CRS communities in Mississippi. One targeted event, like flood outreach at the local mall, can provide $5,347 in flood insurance savings to the Mississippi coast. Also, by creating a PPI in Biloxi, the city became eligible for 130 CRS points. If Biloxi were to gain a class as a result of the PPI, Sea Grant would have contributed to $31,947 in potential premium savings.
Recap:
Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant raised flood hazard awareness among coastal residents and reduced local flood insurance premiums by fostering greater jurisdictional participation in the Community Rating System program. (2018)
Northern Gulf of Mexico Sentinel Site Cooperative increases application of new sea‐level rise science to decision‐making
Relevance:
It is gradually becoming more commonplace to integrate sea‐level rise (SLR) into decision-making along the coast, from natural resource management to community planning to individual residents’ choices. However, stakeholders across the coastal system struggle to understand and apply sea‐level rise scenarios to their maximum utility. This is often driven by the existence of multiple suites of SLR scenarios, time‐steps and probabilities.
Response:
The Sentinel Site Program, led by the Northern Gulf of Mexico Sentinel Site Cooperative (a Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant-supported program), developed a suite of files to easily generate an SLR fact sheet. The SLR two‐pager communicates regionally specific (1 degree latitude x 1 degree longitude) SLR scenarios, days of future flooding and guidance on how to use the scenarios when planning. Expected end‐users are extension and outreach specialists, community planners, natural resource managers and other coastal decisionmakers.
Results:
Extension and outreach professionals throughout the United States used the two-pager, improving communication around SLR and increasing consideration of SLR in coastal planning, community development and individual decision‐making. For example, in Pensacola, Florida, the members that attended a coastal resilience evaluation identified a critical evacuation route as at risk to future storm surge based, in part, on the two-pager.
Recap:
The Northern Gulf of Mexico Sentinel Site Cooperative improved communication of sea‐level rise science through improved access and a customizable fact sheet. (2018)
MASGC efforts lead coastal residents to consider future storm surge when purchasing homes
Relevance:
Storm surge will be exacerbated in extent and depth by sea-level rise in the northern Gulf of Mexico. However, coastal residents have a hard time accessing these projections when considering home purchasing, leaving them unable to make informed decisions about their potential risk in context of their own risk tolerance
Response:
The Northern Gulf of Mexico Sentinel Site Cooperative coordinator (who is supported by Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant) worked with individual coastal residents in Dauphin Island (Alabama), Ocean Springs (Mississippi), Bay St. Louis (Mississippi), and Baldwin County (Alabama) to understand future flood risk by using storm surge simulations (www.gomsurge.org)
Results:
Coastal residents used the available resources on future storm surge before purchasing homes/lots. Additional coastal residents reviewed the vulnerability of their current homes.
Recap:
Through direct interactions with Northern Gulf of Mexico Sentinel Site Cooperative staff, coastal homebuyers have evaluated risk at current and potential homes. (2018)
MASGC informs a community’s revision of stormwater ordinances to enhance green infrastructure
Relevance:
Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant promotes community resilience by addressing stormwater runoff to improve water quality, to reduce the economic harm caused by flooding, to improve the environment by adding green infrastructure and to improve cities’ Community Rating System scores. The City of Oxford, Mississippi, requested a review of its draft stormwater ordinance to improve its resilience to flooding impacts.
Response:
The Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Legal Program analyzed the City of Oxford’s draft stormwater ordinances to identify provisions consistent with its objectives to reduce runoff. Sea Grant compared the Oxford draft ordinances to ordinances from similarly situated Community Rating System communities to identify language supporting green infrastructure techniques and methods for limiting flooding impacts. Sea Grant prepared a report annotating Oxford’s ordinances with suggestions to reduce flooding and specially indicating additions to support green infrastructure.
Results:
The City of Oxford, Mississippi, revised its stormwater ordinances incorporating suggestions from the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Legal Program to improve its resilience to flooding impacts, expand the ordinance’s consideration of green infrastructure and reduce the city’s risk of economic harm from stormwater.
Recap:
The City of Oxford, Mississippi, revised its stormwater ordinances to incorporate suggestions from the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Legal Program to improve resilience to flooding, expand consideration of green infrastructure and reduce risk of economic harm from stormwater. (2018)
MASGC helps Fairhope redesign city marina to improve water quality, resilience
Relevance:
Mobile Bay is a sensitive and important ecological habitat threated by pollution. The marina owned by the city of Fairhope, Alabama, at the confluence of Fly Creek and Mobile Bay had fallen into disrepair under previous management, with stormwater issues and a lack of pumpouts and other water quality protection devices.
Response:
Following the Coastal Community Resilience Index workshop, facilitated by Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant, Fairhope sought assistance in addressing identified issues. Under the externally funded “Connecting the Dots” project, Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant and the city of Fairhope undertook a redesign of the city-managed marina, known as the Fairhope Docks, to alleviate stormwater issues and develop a plan to incorporate clean and resilient marina standards.
Results:
With assistance from Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant, Fairhope received funding through the Clean Vessel Act to install a pumpout station at the City Docks and has partnered with a private marina to fund needed channel maintenance. Project partners provided a design schematic to improve flow, alleviate storm water issues and enhance working waterfront opportunities, and the city is beginning implementation as funding is available.
Recap:
After completing the Coastal Community Resilience Index, the city of Fairhope, Alabama, took steps to implement clean and resilient measures at its marina, including the installation of a pumpout station and a partnership with a private marina for channel maintenance. (2018)
