Throughout September, National Preparedness Month, we explored the complexity of assessing risk from extreme weather events.[1] FEMA’s National Risk Index (NRI) can help us better understand the degree of risk our communities face from extreme weather events.
Starting the Conversation
While no measure will capture risk perfectly, this index empowers us to consider what makes a community more or less at risk. It provides a starting point for important conversations between planners and the public, the private sector and elected officials, about identifying and then addressing these risks. Are they related to infrastructure investment? Are there resource limitations? Do household economic factors have an outsized influence? People should ask: what causes my community to be vulnerable? Even a community that scores in the lowest risk tier on the NRI still faces some risk. It is therefore important to identify what steps can be taken to reduce that risk and make a community more resilient to the extreme weather events that it potentially faces.
Limits of the National Risk Index
The NRI is a useful planning tool, although it should also be understood as a single point of reference. Just as we know that preparedness should be practiced beyond the annual awareness-building month in September, we also know that risk isn’t static. Risk profiles, including those here in the Atlanta Metro region, are actively changing. Similar to how the NRI compiles multiple factors to create a risk score, further and ongoing changes at the household, community, and regional levels can all influence risk. For example, individual financial situations may lead people to forgo air conditioning during an extreme heat event, which may in turn lead to negative health impacts.
Without targeted investments, a growing population in a community may increase the strain on already aging and over-burdened infrastructure, increasing the likelihood of potential failure points to water or transportation systems. Furthermore, we know that a community can “score” more towards the resilient end of the scale, but that some individuals living in those communities might be quite at risk. The converse can also be true, with some individuals or neighborhoods able to be quite resilient to extreme weather events and other shocks even while their overall community is deemed to be at high risk.
But risk isn’t just about communities. It’s about the changing nature of the threats themselves. Across the region we are experiencing more frequent and intense extreme weather events, and even an increased risk of relatively uncommon events for Georgia, such as wildfires. Even communities that scored well on the National Risk Index were not fully prepared to withstand the intensity of Hurricane Helene in 2024. How can communities keep pace, or catch up, with their resilience needs given the multitude of changes – to infrastructure, demographics, the environment, and the climate – that we are facing?
Planning for Atlanta’s Future Resiliency
At the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), we are actively asking these questions and working on interdisciplinary initiatives that support efforts by metro communities and local governments to reduce their risk and become more resilient. Three demonstrable examples of our work include creating more sustainable and connected communities, expanding energy opportunities for local governments, and identifying vulnerabilities to the transportation system in order to support targeted improvements.
Through the Metro Atlanta Climate Action Plan, a U.S. Environmental Planning Agency-funded effort, we are developing a roadmap in support of the 29-county Metropolitan Statistical Area– a region that includes roughly 2/3 of Georgia’s population– for those who want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and see positive results in their communities. A suite of actions was identified that include improving access to public transportation, access to safe hiking and biking trails, improving energy efficiency of buildings, using clean energy sources and increasing renewables within communities, requiring materials from buildings be reused or recycled, and increasing tree canopy coverage. Just as important as the emissions reduction benefits, implementation of this climate plan will bring workforce opportunities and other positive economic impacts.
We are also in the early phases of developing a Regional Clean Electricity Plan for local governments. ARC will assist governments interested in increasing clean electricity use across the Atlanta region by understanding energy baselines, potential economic impacts, funding opportunities, and stakeholder considerations. As the region will need more electricity to continue supporting population growth and business development, as well as an increase in extreme heat events, we should consider clean and reliable sources of energy as additional tools in the toolbox.
ARC will also soon kick off a Transportation Resilience Improvement Plan (TRIP) through a Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation Program (PROTECT) grant from the Federal Highway Administration. The agency will conduct a thorough regional analysis of current and future risk to natural hazards such as flooding, extreme heat, and other extreme weather events. This study will ultimately identify specific high-priority projects and create better climate adaptation and resilience policies for integration into the long-range Metropolitan Transportation Plan. It will inform decision-making at the local and regional level, including short-range (immediate) and long-range planning activities and guide ARC’s strategic investments for surface transportation system resilience within the region.
While risk profiles can and do change, taking action to enhance resilience should be an ongoing community activity to maintain preparedness, no matter the threat level. The examples above are just some of the ways in which ARC is working across the region to support people, infrastructure, and our natural resources facing extreme weather events. Increasing resilience is a long-term objective, and ARC is committed to supporting local governments in their preparations for change, so that they can thrive into the future. We encourage you to check out more of our related work at https://atlantaregional.org/what-we-do/climate-resilience/.
Notes:
[1] Previous posts in this series covered the concepts of social vulnerability, community resilience, and Expected Annual Loss, and then showed how the Federal Emergency Management Agency combines all three in its National Risk Index.