Below excerpts are from a May 15th article in Bloomberg. The full article is available here.

The state [of Louisiana] on Wednesday issued a sweeping blueprint—the first of its kind in the U.S.—for managing the ongoing population movement away from its coastal areas, and preparing inland communities to receive an infusion of people.

Officials around the country are being forced to confront whether, and how, to help people get out of the way of the effects of climate change. None has gone so far as what Louisiana is proposing.

The document calls for high-risk areas to “transition away from permanent residential development.” For those residents and structures that remain, the report urges local officials to impose stronger building codes and stormwater management systems.

According to Bloomberg, Washington D.C. is announcing a goal of retrofitting or removing all of its flood-prone buildings by 2050, the first major U.S. city to set such a policy.

“In some cases, we’re going to have to figure out how to do managed retreat and relocation,” said Kevin Bush, Washington’s chief resilience officer and the lead author of the strategy.

The Congressional Budget Office recently projected that hurricanes and storms will consume 0.3 percent of the nation’s GDP, while bond rating companies warn that ignoring extreme weather will hurt cities’ credit ratings.

The same may be true for towns, like Southampton.

To read the full article, please visit this link: “D.C. Is First to Plan to Remove, Retrofit Flood-Prone Buildings”.