United States

Stalled cars and rescue vehicles on a flooded section of Interstate 610 in Houston on Aug. 27.  ALYSSA SCHUKAR

CLICK HERE - BiPartisan Budget Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-123) - Long Term Disaster Recovery Investment Plan - Construction Account - As of July 5, 2018 (2 page .PDF file)

bizjournals.com - by Olivia Pulsinelli - July 6, 2018

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced July 5 how it will allocate billions of dollars for more flood-mitigation efforts. 

Of the allocations announced July 5, the largest portion is more than $13.9 billion for the construction of nearly 60 projects to reduce damage from floods and storms across multiple states and Puerto Rico.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Orange County, Texas - see page 11 in the 75 page report within the link below.  It describes the proposed construction for the levee in Orange County and includes a map showing the placement of the proposed levee.

Oceanfront homes in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Houses on the US coastline could risk being flooded every two weeks. Photograph: Alamy

Climate change study predicts ‘staggering impact’ of swelling oceans on coastal communities within next 30 years

CLICK HERE - Union of Concerned Scientists - Introduction - US Coastal Property at Risk from Rising Seas

CLICK HERE - Union of Concerned Scientists - Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (2018)

CLICK HERE - Union of Concerned Scientists - When Rising Seas Hit Home: Hard Choices Ahead for Hundreds of US Coastal Communities (2017)

reuters.com - by Andy Sullivan - June 13, 2018

With the 2018 hurricane season already underway, FEMA is scrambling to hire more people who are willing to depart at a moment’s notice for assignments that can last months at a stretch.

Internal documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show the agency's disaster-response force is understaffed by 26 percent. And as last year revealed, many of those who sign up don't always respond when needed.

The extraordinary string of domestic disasters in 2017 continues to weigh on the U.S. agency. With thousands of workers still out in the field, official figures show that 33 percent of FEMA’s disaster-response workforce is available for deployment, down from 56 percent at this time last year.

Some specialties are stretched especially thin: Only 13 percent of the workers who direct federal aid to pay for rebuilding costs after a disaster hits are currently available.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Hurricane Harvey over the Gulf of Mexico in August 2017. The storm stalled over Texas and dropped nearly 50 inches of rain in some places.  Credit NOAA/NASA GOES Project

CLICK HERE - STUDY - A global slowdown of tropical-cyclone translation speed

A new study shows that storms are staying in one place longer, much like Hurricane Harvey did last year.

nytimes.com - by Kendra Pierre-Louis - June 6, 2018

 . . . A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature focuses on what is known as translation speed, which measures how quickly a storm is moving over an area, say, from Miami to the Florida Panhandle. Between 1949 and 2016, tropical cyclone translation speeds declined 10 percent worldwide, the study says. The storms, in effect, are sticking around places for a longer period of time.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)