The goal of the Safe Homes For All Leadership Forum was to bring together professionals from across the spectrum to discuss different strategies for hurricane risk mitigation for low-income households. While nearly all of the strategies discussed and recommendations made were broadly applicable to the overall population in hurricane and flood-prone areas, the most eye-opening and all encompassing disaster mitigation strategies came from the panel that spoke to the realities of climate-change.

Climate-change is happening and its amplifying effect on natural disasters has been seen around the world.  Weather is becoming more extreme across the country, from droughts in California to flooding in the Midwest to hurricanes in coastal areas.

Of all the fascinating take-away points that the many panelists provided, for me, the most interesting information concerned the environmental impact of disaster mitigation and what really works when it comes to preventing catastrophic losses.  Andrew Fahlund, Vice President for Conservation at American Rivers, spoke briefly about the negative externalities created by cost externalization of the National Flood Insurance Program.  This program provides flood insurance at below market rates and has lead to substantial development in floodplains across the country.  Not only does building in a floodplain put people and their possessions directly in harms way but it further exacerbates the effects of a potential disaster by destroying natural flood defenses.

The realization that building in these areas is a problem is evident from a lawsuit currently in federal court.  The National Wildlife Federation, Audubon Society of Portland, and other groups are currently suing FEMA over development in the Oregon floodplain and its detrimental effects on recovery of the salmon population.

In addition to destroying the fish population, natural flood defenses are also being destroyed.  Our natural environment and its ability to mitigate disasters is one of the keys to preventing catastrophic amounts of damage in the future.  Hurricane Katrina resulted in over $150 billion in damage, some of which could have been mitigated by the Gulf Coast’s natural flood defenses, which have been disappearing over the last century.

Julia Pergola is a legal intern with the Disaster Accountability Project.  She is a student at Georgetown Law.