States, federal government, plan for climate-change disasters; interactive map shows recently affected areas

Federal disaster declarations, 2014-19 (Stateline map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version)

"State lawmakers across the country are calling for huge investments to mitigate the effects of wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, droughts and other natural disasters made more devastating and frequent by climate change," Alex Brown reports for Stateline. "Following the hottest decade on record, which saw record-breaking wildfires in the West, extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy, a years-long drought in California, and severe flooding in the Midwest, legislators in many states say it’s long past time to treat such events as the new normal — and invest accordingly."

The federal government is getting ready too: the Department of Housing and Urban Development now has a $16 billion program to help coastal states prepare for natural disasters. That's a departure from the department's usual model of helping by way of its Federal Emergency Management Agency after disasters have happened, Brown reports.

"Even states whose leaders don’t publicly acknowledge the existence of climate change, such as Texas and South Carolina, have applied for federal dollars citing 'changing coastal conditions' or 'unpredictability,'" Brown reports.

Planning for climate-change disasters requires government officials to adopt a different mindset. "Most of what government does is thinking three to five years ahead," Jim Murley, the chief resilience officer in Miami-Dade County, told Brown. With climate change, "We seriously have to think about 2040, 2060, 2100 — that doesn’t happen. We don’t do that for transportation planning, water planning — anything. You have to deal with a lot of uncertainty while at the same time believing the science is taking you on some path among these scenarios."