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Local Government Officials
Flooding is the most common and widespread of all weather-related natural disasters. In order to protect the safety and security of local residents and infrastructure, communities must mitigate – or reduce flood risk – and determine how to respond when flooding occurs.
A city with a long history of flooding that had experienced seven presidentially declared disasters, Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, undertook the construction of a connected system of two retention ponds and one detention basin in 2002. To start the project, the city purchased 80 homes and businesses along the town’s creek via acquisition. The land on which these structures sat was then used to house the two retention ponds and new public parks. The system was designed to capture 100 million gallons of stormwater, directing and controlling the flow of floodwaters into the ponds and diverting it away from the city’s homes, roads, and public buildings. Since construction began in 2003, the city has not suffered any major damage to homes and businesses, despite having experienced one of the worst floods in its history in 2021.
This website was built to help you as a local government official:
- Explain flood mitigation to your residents as they work to reduce their individual risk, and
- Understand what actions your community can take to reduce its own risk of flooding and flood damages at the community level.
Flooding is the most common and widespread of all weather-related disasters. Tribal lands, sites (e.g., sacred, historical, cultural, economic, governmental), infrastructure, resources, and economic status can all be jeopardized in the event of a flood. In order to protect the safety and security of tribal members, infrastructure, and lands, tribal governments must mitigate flood risk and determine how to respond when flooding occurs.
This webpage was built to help tribal government officials:
- Explain flood mitigation to your community members as they work to reduce their individual and collective risk,
- Understand what actions your tribe can take to reduce the risk of flooding and flood damages to tribal lands and structures.
- Connect with tribal support organizations that can help minimize flood risk in Tribal lands.
Tribal support organizations may also find the directory helpful, when looking to connect tribal nations with organizations who provide services and/or resources they do not offer themselves.
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Federal, Regional, State, & Territorial Government Officials
While local governments are on the frontlines of flooding and other natural disasters, federal, regional, state and territory representatives in the floodplain and emergency management fields may each play a vital role in the process of addressing flooding and damage associated with flooding at the local, regional, and national levels. Each works to support local communities as they mitigate flooding and reduce flood risk – whether via providing planning assistance, technical assistance, or stakeholder coordination, setting minimum standard regulations, or funding and implementing projects.
With the continued annual increase in the frequency of flooding and the damage associated with flooding, it is more important than ever for federal, regional, state, and territorial government officials to have the proper educational tools to support local communities and residents as they work to increase their resilience.
ReduceFloodRisk.org was built with property owners and property buyers as the primary target audience, and local communities as the main secondary audience. As such, this website is useful to federal, regional, state, and territorial government officials as an outreach tool as you work with local and tribal communities and their residents around flood mitigation.
Communities and residents can be guided to the Reduce Flood Risk website to find information on:
- A basic understanding of flooding and flood risk
- What mitigation actions they can take to reduce flood risk for a specific property
- What mitigation actions a community can take to reduce its risk of flooding and flood damage at the community level
- Flood insurance and other means of financial assistance available to reduce flood risk
- Outreach materials to promote flood risk reduction
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