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Posted by Sarah Levin-Lederer on September 16th, 2024
Posted in: Blog
September is National Preparedness Month (Mes de Preparación Nacional), which makes it a great time to talk about climate related preparedness. How does climate change affect extreme weather? And how is preparedness part of climate adaptation?
Past blog posts have covered climate change and extreme weather and climate change and extreme heat as part of a series on climate change and data. And what we see from data is that climate change is causing larger storms (ex: bigger hurricanes more often) and more concentrated storms (ex: storms that lead to more flooding).
A statistic that shows this well is that in the last 20 years, the pay outs from the National Flood Insurance Program has been 660% higher than the previous 20-year period.
When we talk about climate change and interventions, there are two main areas-Mitigation and adaptation.
Mitigation: Programs and interventions designed to reduce climate change
Mitigation strategies include:
Adaptation: Programs and interventions designed to adapt to life in a changing climate. Climate change is coming and/or here, what do we do?
Adaptation interventions include upgrades to infrastructure (resilient design) and updated disaster management planning for communities and individuals to address the extremes caused by climate change.
MedlinePlus:
NNLM Emergency Preparedness Guide-Find links to resources including FEMA regional resources, preparedness for specific demographic groups and more.
Past R7 blog posts focused on Emergency Preparedness Resource.
NNLM Reading Club Disasters and Emergencies-Find books and resources to use with patrons during September and beyond.
Ready.gov (Listo, ready.gov en español) for information on specific emergencies, natural and man-made, and resources for making plans for your household including resources such as:
Other Resources from federal partners: