How Communities Can Build Better Resilience and Response Measures in the Face of a Changing Climate

People in communities across the U.S. have grown accustomed to extreme weather patterns they consider part of their region's way of life. From flash flooding in New Orleans to heat waves blasting the city of Phoenix, some climate patterns have remained consistent across generations. Family members can hand down knowledge from one generation to the next, offering sage wisdom like "check on your neighbors during a blizzard" that seems unexpected — until you understand the real reasons.

But in a rapidly changing climate, the old lessons may not help much on their own. That's especially the case when unfamiliar disasters creep up in unexpected places, like when a Nor'easter comes to the Southeast. When frigid temperatures gripped the South in January, it left 85 dead and many communities without power for days.

Being resilient in the face of an unpredictable climate, then, goes beyond conventional wisdom. It even goes beyond being prepared for the next flood or hurricane or snowstorm. It means understanding threats you've never had to prepare for in your life, like sea level rise, and putting a plan in place now to respond later.

Here's 5 tips that can make it easier for your community to get that plan together.

1. Get Consensus, and Create Roles

A real plan requires input across stakeholders and buy-in from across multiple organizational levels, including from the public itself. 

Ensure that your plan-to-make-a-plan involves everyone who might have valuable input or expertise to contribute, accordingly. That means tapping subject matter experts within your community, finding roles within your existing administration who have disaster preparedness overlap, and tapping academic and professional researchers to help you define the true scope of the problem.

Identify individuals who would best serve as advisors or facilitators at this stage. If need be, you can form committees to define roles more clearly, making it easier to recruit or appoint from within.

If you can, get a mandate to complete the planning process through a vote in your commission or legislative chamber. Passing an actual policy or bill helps ensure that the planning set in motion can continue even as responsibilities change hands.

"To be effective," the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions suggests, "local resilience efforts must build the capacity of the entire community — including individual residents, neighborhoods, businesses, city planners and first responders — to cope with both chronic stresses like increasing temperatures and acute shocks like extreme weather events."

That kind of work starts from the ground up and has stakes for departments at nearly every level. Get folks involved, and then decide who's going to be in charge of actually putting a plan together.

2. Take Advantage of Data and Tools to Scope out the Problem

Part of being prepared means understanding what your up against: not just in terms of category, but also scope and effects. Fortunately, even as some climate data and resources are actively being taken down, there's still a wealth of resources available.

The U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, for example, can walk stakeholders through the challenges they should anticipate for their region, along with the actions they can take to address them. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also offers a wealth of resources, including their Climate Mapping for Resilience & Adaptation dashboard. 

The community and administrative personnel you tap can also point you towards local resources for historic data, current preparedness measures, and resources to gather further information.

3. Prepare for Today as Well as Tomorrow

"Resilience" means being ready for all stages of a sudden, dramatic change. That means taking steps to address climate issues now, rather than merely responding after they happen.

The West Virginia flood resilience plan defines resilience as "The capability to adapt to potential disruptions, seize opportunities, and effectively respond to outcomes. This involves reorganizing in a manner that preserves communities’ fundamental function, identity, and structure, while also facilitating adaptation, learning, and transformation."

This definition incorporates learnings from the U.S. Army Corps of Civil Engineers, who are often tasked with understanding what problems could look like 50 or 100 years from now, especially without the right interventionary measures in place. This approach ensures that when solutions are built, they are built to actually address evolving needs — meaning they are built to last.

For communities, this can mean planting native flora in wetlands or along coasts to reduce the risks of flooding. It can also mean building permeable infrastructure and having a storm water system capable of handling events at multiple scales.

The goal is to have infrastructure in place — engineered, planted, and organized — so that the worst effects might be diminished before a crisis even hits.

4. Be Ready to Respond (And Learn From Each Response)

When Hurricane Helen took a sudden turn towards Western North Carolina, very few in the region were fully prepared for what would happen next. Yancey County received 30.78 inches of rain, triggering flooding and landslides that would cut off communities from evacuation routes.

In these moments, one of the most reliable sources of relief came from friends and neighbors looking out for one another. Volunteers with chainsaws helped clear paths to help reach stranded neighbors or remove debris to get supplies across damaged roads. 

Even still, water systems were severely compromised, meaning it took nearly two months to restore safe drinking water. In response, the city of Asheville invested in water filtration systems that can handle the heavy amounts of sediments seen after landslides and flooding turned its rivers into a muddy soup. They also learned the importance of clear communication, engaging with the community, and directly addressing concerns.

True resiliency is an ongoing process, one that can never truly be perfected. All we can do is keep learning from each incident and from each other. That way, when we do respond quickly to the next disaster, it's with the lessons of our past firmly in mind.

5. Take Steps to Reduce Your Climate Impact

From planting shade trees to decarbonizing municipal buildings, there are many ways to contribute to emissions reduction and carbon removal. 

Using renewable energy sources has the added benefit of creating more robust and resilient infrastructure. By connecting clean energy sources to microgrids, key community and operational centers can remain active, even in the wake of a disaster. 

This approach even led to the creation of a network of "resilience hubs" that could be lent out across states like North Carolina, providing solar modules, batteries, and communications equipment to individuals who would otherwise be without power.

With enough traction across communities, energy independence, decarbonization, and climate resilience can all go hand-in-hand through the growth of clean energy infrastructure.

Reach out to Gemini Energy Solutions for Climate Consulting Expertise

If you're a city official or another key stakeholder who's interested in improving your community's ability to prepare for, respond to, and spring back from a climate disaster, creating a decarbonization hub could be part of an effective strategy. 

Microgrids not only reduce reliance on a centralized grid, but they can also reduce municipal grid loads and create valuable community safe havens after a major climate event. In many cases, microgrids can even generate a surplus of electricity, which can be monetized through vehicle charging stations and selling energy back to the utilities companies. 

Find out more about how we've been helping cities like yours with planning, implementation, coordination, and finding funding for their decarbonization and clean energy projects. Reach out to speak to an experienced associate today.

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