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Louisiana Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments (LA SAFE)
2018
The Louisiana Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments (LA SAFE) planning process is aimed at climate adaptation and resilience planning for coastal communities in Louisiana. The strategy supports mitigating risks and increasing resilience to coastal impacts - especially flooding. The LA SAFE initiative was first funded through a HUD long-term disaster recovery grant, for six parishes most impacted by Hurricane Isaac in 2012. Guided by the state of Louisiana, and a network of regional non-profits focused on coastal restoration and resilience, it is a goal of the LA SAFE program to expand the program statewide in the future.
Resource Category: Solutions
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My Strong Home - Home Risk Mitigation Loans
2017
MyStrongHome is a public-benefit corporation which aims to help homes and communities in coastal areas in South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to be better protected from extreme weather by financing and managing home upgrades, especially new storm-ready roofs, to meet resilient building standards. By providing an “end-to-end” solution, from assessment and financing through construction and insurance, MyStrongHome makes home risk mitigation, and climate change resilience, more accessible to homeowners.
Resource Category: Funding
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A Sense of Place at Risk - Perspectives of residents of coastal Louisiana on nonstructural risk reduction strategies
April 14, 2016
Supported by Oxfam America, this study documented the views of residents from three vulnerable Louisiana coastal parishes - Terrebonne, Lafourche, and Plaquemines. These parishes face extreme coastal land loss from flooding and sea level rise, and other critical climate and social impacts. The study focuses on nonstructural coastal flooding mitigation measures, such as restoring coastal marshlands. A series of interviews were conducted to investigate how residents understand and respond to the challenges of sea level rise and climate change.
Resource Category: Solutions
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Resilient Jean Lafitte, Louisiana Flood Preparedness Toolkit
2016
The Jean Lafitte Flood Preparedness Toolkit developed by the Town of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, provides information, guidelines and recommended regulations to reduce flood risk in the region. Jean Lafitte faces many climate related impacts including sea level rise, storm surge, hurricanes, with subsequent extreme flooding, erosion and permanent wetland loss - that in turn leads to more flooding. The toolkit provides best practices and guidelines to reduce flood risk on a Site and Building Scale as well as on Community Scale development.
Resource Category: Solutions
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Climate Change, Resilience and Fairness - How Nonstructural Adaptation Can Protect and Empower Socially Vulnerable Communities on the Gulf Coast
April 2016
Utilizing case studies from extreme flooding events, this paper synthesizes lessons learned, hazard mitigation strategies, and best practices in adaptation. The focus is on nonstructural adaptation strategies such as disaster planning and mitigation, and property buyouts. The best practices for implementing nonstructural adaptation strategies are also discussed with respect to impacts on, and solutions for, vulnerable communities. The paper is grounded in three case studies of flooding events that each caused widespread damage, occurred across a range of demographic and socio-economic conditions, and involved both structural and nonstructural post-disaster adaptation strategies.
Resource Category: Solutions
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New Orleans, Louisiana Zika virus response
April 2016
In 2016, when the risk of Zika virus in the United States became higher, the mayor of New Orleans brought together public and private partners to proactively manage those risks and protect the city’s most vulnerable residents. By activating the local public health department, the Board of mosquito control, local physicians, environmental experts, and community members, the government was able to create a comprehensive Zika response plan to protect the public, especially pregnant women. In the first phase, partners educated the public on risks and mitigation strategies, especially healthcare providers and facilities. The city also stepped up vector control to reduce risk and surveillance of mosquito populations to ensure effectiveness. This combination of efforts was intended to ensure that Phases 2 and 3 of the Plan (activated in the case of reported cases of Zika) would be delayed or unnecessary due to preventive measures. By focusing education efforts for the public and healthcare entities on the risk to the most vulnerable subgroup of residents, the partners could ensure that pregnant women would be well-protected. The efforts were funded by general public health funding streams.
Resource Category: Planning
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Resilient Jean Lafitte, Louisiana - A Flood Emergency Preparedness Plan
2016
The Town of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana sits at or below sea level on the Gulf of Mexico and is highly vulnerable to extreme flooding from storm events, while economically dependent on maritime industries. Their Flood Emergency Preparedness Plan (FEPP) presents flood risk reduction recommendations in response to the compounding impacts of hurricanes, storm surge, coastal erosion, subsidence, sea level rise, and climate change. The FEPP's flood risk reduction initiatives were heavily informed by the 2013 Town Resiliency Plan “Jean Lafitte Tomorrow.
Resource Category: Planning
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New Orleans, Louisiana Project Home Again Land Swaps
2013
The New Orleans Project Home Again (PHA) in Louisiana involved a land swap and redevelopment program implemented post-Hurricane Katrina that can serve as an example for how public-private partnerships can help people retreat away from flood-prone coastal areas. Through this project, PHA aimed to concentrate redevelopment at higher elevations away from low-elevation floodplains and expand relocation options for impacted homeowners. The hurricane-damaged homes on participants’ original properties were demolished and converted to climate resilient open space for flood retention, environmental, and community benefits. Specifically, PHA used a land swap program that enabled low- and middle-income homeowners to relocate to less vulnerable areas with new affordable, clustered housing. The PHA program demonstrates how land swaps can offer a tool for planners and policymakers to effectively guide redevelopment in disaster recovery settings and expand affordable and resilient housing opportunities. A similar land swap model could also be considered in a pre-disaster context and phased over time, if community consensus, vacant or developable land, and funding for housing construction exists.
Resource Category: Solutions
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Resilient Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Resilient Baton Rouge is a program designed to increase local community capacity in the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana to manage mental and behavioral health in flood-prone parts of the region. By engaging local leaders and healthcare providers, the program has been able to focus on not only delivering mental health services to residents displaced by floodwaters, but also to engage community members in a longer-term process to strengthen both the local communities themselves but also the plans to increase resilience in the region. By deeply engaging affected residents and stakeholders, the plans for resilience broadly are more responsive and targeted to those most affected by the floods. The program is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with fiscal sponsorship from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation.
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Managing the Retreat from Rising Seas — State of Louisiana: Louisiana Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments (LA SAFE)
July 15, 2020
Louisiana Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments (LA SAFE) is a community-based planning and capital investment process that will help the state fund and implement several projects, including for managed retreat, to make its coasts more resilient. In 2016, Louisiana’s Office for Community Development–Disaster Recovery Unit received a nearly $40 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the National Disaster Resilience Competition and additional state and nongovernmental funds to implement LA SAFE. The grant will support the design and implementation of resilience projects to address impacts in six coastal parishes that were affected by Hurricane Isaac in 2012. The state partnered with the nonprofit Foundation for Louisiana to administer LA SAFE and facilitate an extensive, year-long community engagement process that will result in implementation of ten funded projects across the six parishes. By contemplating a regional, rather than a parish-specific, approach to addressing coastal risk, LA SAFE provides a model that other states and local governments may consider when making long-term adaptation and resilience investments, including for managed retreat. This case study is one of 17 case studies featured in a report written by the Georgetown Climate Center, Managing the Retreat from Rising Seas: Lessons and Tools from 17 Case Studies.
Resource Category: Solutions
