To Reduce Disaster Risks, State Lawmakers Focus on Actionable Strategies

The historic, devastating wildfires that ravaged the Los Angeles area in January—destroying homes, communities, businesses, and lives—have once again elevated the need for state lawmakers and government officials throughout the country to help their jurisdictions become more resilient to disasters.

The disaster highlights the urgency of policymakers’ work building community resilience. To help state lawmakers develop innovative policies to build their states' resilience to wildfires, floods, droughts, and extreme heat, The Pew Charitable Trusts supported a National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) workshop last August in Louisville, Kentucky. As state legislatures shift into high gear this month, the workshop’s findings remain particularly relevant.

For some attendees, extreme weather disasters have hit close to home. Kentucky State Senator Robin Webb (D) noted during the event that she has lost friends to flooding and has constituents in three counties along the Ohio River in Eastern Kentucky that often face flood warnings and alerts. Other attendees represented areas recovering from flooding in Florida, tornadoes across North Carolina, and power outages related to severe storms in Georgia. And even policymakers from states that haven’t endured recent catastrophes said that disasters are a primary concern for their constituents.

The Pew Charitable Trusts

Workshop participants identified five disaster mitigation themes that are likely to frame state policy discussions during ongoing legislative sessions.

1. Maximizing federal funding opportunities

Numerous federal programs provide investment opportunities for states to improve disaster mitigation, land-use planning, and building codes, and they allow for technical assistance to develop and implement resilience activities. These programs include the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) and Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant programs, and similar opportunities from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Defense. One example highlighted during the discussion was Texas’ Flood Infrastructure Fund, which uses federal BRIC grants to award state loans and grants to finance flood resilience projects.

2. Stabilizing insurance markets

With disaster-related losses continuing to rise, policymakers said they need to find ways to ensure that all residents have access to affordable property and casualty insurance. Notably, lawmakers said they, regulators, and private insurers must collaborate to promote community resilience and create sustainable insurance markets. Hawaii took steps in this direction following the 2023 wildfire that devastated Lahaina, Maui, by instructing state agencies to investigate the creation of a wildfire insurance compact and by commissioning a study on market-based approaches to wildfire threats.

3. Using data and modeling to inform resilience actions

Participants agreed that more and improved data—and data analysis—would help them better understand and reduce long-term disaster risk. Specifically, policymakers said floodplain maps, land-use plans, and permitting decisions would benefit from such improvements. Citing one example, participants pointed to New Jersey’s approach of incorporating vulnerability assessments and catastrophe scenario modeling into local planning, with a particular focus on flood and heat risks, which ensures that new development accounts for known risks.

4. Anticipating growing public health threats from extreme weather

Resilience plans should account for public health impacts, such as algal blooms and vector-borne diseases, that might arise from extreme weather events. Lawmakers also proposed solutions to problems such as extreme heat, for example, by strategically locating cooling centers and adopting green infrastructure—such as green roofs and urban gardens—that absorbs heat naturally. And participants said they need to help limit the disproportionate impacts of severe weather and disasters on vulnerable populations and help those communities grow their capacity to prepare for and withstand such events. Some attendees highlighted California’s Extreme Heat and Community Resilience Program as one successful approach. Created through legislative action in 2021, the program coordinates and funds state-level responses to extreme heat, including construction of heat-resistant infrastructure.

5. Using state plans to inform resilience investments

States must develop a pipeline of practical resilience projects that have widespread public support, participants said, citing the TOPIC (triage, organize, prioritize, implement, continue) planning method as one effective approach. South Carolina has had success in this area through the creation of an Office of Resilience and its Strategic Statewide Resilience and Risk Reduction Plan to assess vulnerabilities and develop and implement resilience programs and projects with extensive community engagement.

Many state lawmakers are seeking opportunities to reduce long-term disaster risk and increase resilience.

Senator Webb, who noted that she had traveled to the Netherlands to learn more about flood resilience best practices, said one key to succeeding on disaster resilience is authentic collaboration between state officials and the communities most at risk. “It’s going to take a change of cultural mindset to get a solution,” Webb said.

Mathew Sanders is a senior officer with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ U.S. conservation project and Ronojoy Sen is an officer with Pew’s managing fiscal risks project.