International
US hurricane rebuilding rules must adapt to ‘era of climate change’: expert
AFP | Lucie Aubourg
After an extreme weather event, such as Hurricane Ian which devastated parts of Florida last month, most Americans choose to rebuild rather than move to less hazardous areas.
But as climate change increases the frequency and scale of natural disasters, does US policy need to adapt?
Gavin Smith, a professor of environmental planning at the University of North Carolina, worked for several states following major hurricanes, including Katrina in Mississippi (2005) and Matthew in North Carolina (2016).
According to him, current reconstruction standards are not up to the challenges posed by climate change, but correcting them will require real “political will.”
Smith’s responses to AFP have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Current reconstruction rules
Q: What are the rules for re-construction after a hurricane, and are they adapted to climate change?
A: Communities must comply with the local codes and standards in place in their jurisdiction before the storm struck.
In the US, we have the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which has historically been subsidized by the federal government.
For a community to join the program, it has to adopt certain flood risk reduction standards. They include building codes as well as land use plans.
Then, if a home is damaged in the storm more than 50 percent of their value, it must be built back to the most recent code and standards in place.
Our standard for flood is rebuilding largely back to the “100 year flood,” more accurately termed the one percent annual chance flood event. But in an era of climate change, that “100 year” flood is happening more and more often.
Most risk reduction codes and standards often reflect a climate of the past.
For example, we spent $14 billion rebuilding the levee system in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. That levee system was built back to the “100 year flood.”
So you could make the argument that in the era of climate change, that levee system is already out of date.
Political will
Q: What do you expect from government officials?
A: Disasters can present opportunities to rebuild communities safer.
What I’m suggesting is that if we’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building these communities back, we need to require communities to adopt higher codes and standards.
But that takes political will of both members of Congress and local elected officials.
These are really difficult trillion dollar questions.
You’ll also have builders and the private sector saying, “We should limit those kinds of regulations, as we need to quickly rebuild.”
It takes a lot of political will for a mayor or for a governor to say “No, we’ve got to do what’s right in the long run.:
Unfortunately, people don’t get elected by saying “I am going to require higher standards.”
That’s not a winning slogan. It takes political will to say, enough is enough, we need to adopt higher standards, it’s going to take time, cost more, and people may have to pay more to do it.
That said, we also need to make sure we include equity in processes adopted to develop those standards.
The shrimpers and the crabbers that live in a very modest house on the water, if we make them adopt higher standards, can they afford it?
Rules for resilience
Q: Concretely, what would be these better standards?
A: A really simple way to think about it is “where” and “how” you build in relation to natural hazards, including those exacerbated by climate change.
The “how” include elevating structures, more stringent standards for wind performance, like better roof shingles, hardening our infrastructure — communication systems, bridges, roads, levees… We can also do this by protecting natural systems like dunes and wetlands.
The “where” is what we would often refer to as land use planning.
Should we be putting a hospital, or a school, in an area subject to storm surge? Probably not.
A community may choose to say, we’re not going to build a house within 200 meters of the beach.
Or adopt a gradual disinvestment strategy in extremely risky areas (managed retreat). It’s very difficult to do politically, but it’s happening on a small scale.
Resilience is really about a series of protective measures or choices. It’s not just one. A levee, if that’s your only protection and it fails, to me that’s not resilience.
International
Man arrested after deliberately driving into seven children in Osaka
Japanese police arrested a man on Thursday after he rammed his car into a group of seven schoolchildren in an apparent deliberate attack in the city of Osaka.
The children, who were on their way home from school, sustained injuries and were taken to the hospital. All seven remained conscious, according to local authorities.
An Osaka police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspect is a 28-year-old man from Tokyo. The officer shared statements the man made after his arrest: “I was fed up with everything, so I decided to kill people by driving into several elementary school children,” the suspect reportedly said.
The man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
The injured children, aged between seven and eight, included a seven-year-old girl who suffered a fractured jaw. The six other children—all boys—suffered minor injuries such as bruises and scratches and were undergoing medical evaluation.
Witnesses described the car as “zigzagging” before hitting the children. One witness told Nippon TV that a girl was “covered in blood” and the others appeared to have scratches.
Another witness said the driver, who was wearing a face mask, looked to be in shock when school staff pulled him from the vehicle.
Violent crimes are rare in Japan, though serious incidents do occur from time to time. In 2008, Tomohiro Kato drove a two-ton truck into pedestrians in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, then fatally stabbed several victims. Seven people were killed in that attack.
Internacionales
Clashes erupt during may day protests across France amid calls for better wages
May Day protests in France were marked by a heavy police presence and clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement in several cities.
In Paris, Lyon, and Nantes, thousands took to the streets to demand better wages, fairer working conditions, and to voice their dissatisfaction with President Emmanuel Macron’s government.
While the majority of the demonstrations remained peaceful, isolated confrontations broke out in some areas. Protesters threw objects at the police, prompting the use of tear gas and resulting in several arrests.
Videos showing police crackdowns circulated widely on social media, drawing criticism from labor unions and human rights advocates, who denounced the authorities’ response to the protests.
International
Kristi Noem credits Trump for mass migrant deportations by mexican president
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claimed that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has deported “more than half a million” migrants due to pressure from former President Donald Trump.
During a cabinet meeting highlighting the “achievements” of Trump’s administration in its first 100 days, Noem asserted that under the Republican leader’s influence, “Mexico has finally come to the table” to negotiate on migration and fentanyl trafficking.
“The president of Mexico told me she has returned just over half a million people before they reached our border,” Noem stated, criticizing media reports that suggest the Biden administration deported more migrants than Trump’s.
“I wish those deportations were counted,” Noem added, “because those people never made it to our border—she sent them back because you made her.” She went on to thank Trump: “They never made it here because they got the message—because you were so aggressive.”
Noem has made controversial claims about Sheinbaum in the past, prompting the Mexican leader to refute them.
On April 1, Sheinbaum responded to one such statement by declaring, “The president answers to only one authority, and that is the people of Mexico,” after Noem said on Fox News that she gave Sheinbaum “a list of things Trump would like to see” and that Mexico’s actions would determine whether Trump granted tariff relief.
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