Sean Lahav, Matt Bucchin, Wesley Brooks: Resilient Florida, resilient nation

A new report shows that Florida's PACE hurricane hardening

The 2024 hurricane season delivered a stark warning. Storms that severely impacted communities across the eastern United States resulted in one of the deadliest and most destructive seasons in more than a century, depleting federal relief funds and leaving people stranded and struggling in the storms’ aftermath.

Thanks to a stroke of meteorological luck, Tampa Bay avoided a truly catastrophic storm surge from Hurricane Milton, but that escape was too close for comfort. Disaster-preparedness approaches designed decades ago no longer work. It’s time for structural change.

A recent Executive Order, Achieving Efficiency Through State and Local Preparedness, seeks to deliver just that. The Executive Order calls for a shift towards modern, risk-informed planning for extreme weather, cyberattacks, and other critical threats. To succeed, however, we as a nation must build on successful state-led models that have already demonstrated results. Florida’s innovative Resilient Florida Program offers a clear and scalable blueprint.

Resilient Florida, enacted in 2021 through Section 380.093 of Florida Statutes, is the strongest example of proactive, statewide flood resilience planning in the country. It requires every local government in Florida — 67 counties and more than 400 municipalities — to complete a Flood Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessment (FIVA) as a prerequisite for state resilience funding. These assessments evaluate risks to critical infrastructure (such as emergency shelters, utilities, evacuation routes, and water systems) under specific, realistic flood scenarios, and recommend tailored, cost-effective ways for communities to respond.

Since the program’s launch, Florida has invested more than $1.5 billion in state-funded flood mitigation projects, including more than $35 million to upgrade stormwater infrastructure in and around Tampa. This investment is like money in the bank, projected or expected to yield a $6 to $7 return on every dollar and ensure long-term savings.

And in 2024, when Hurricanes Debbie, Helene, and Milton successively ripped through the state, the planning efforts and mitigation projects spurred by Resilient Florida meant Florida communities were better prepared and began recovering quicker than communities in other impacted states.

The federal government should replicate Florida’s model nationwide. As part of the National Resilience Strategy that is anticipated to be developed, states should be required to establish their own FIVA programs to be eligible for federal resilience funding. This mandate would do more than reduce federal liability for disasters—it would empower state and local governments to lead in ways that make sense for them.

This approach will also lead to better coordination across federal, state and local governments. Federal agencies already produce essential flood risk data. What’s missing is a mechanism to tie that information to infrastructure decisions at the state and local levels. Implementing FIVAs as standard practice would guarantee that taxpayer-funded data is effectively used to strengthen communities.

The 2024 storm season must be remembered not only for its destruction but for what it teaches us about the fragility of critical infrastructure in the face of extreme weather events. It is time to break the costly cycle of damage and repair. The recent Executive Order outlines a vision of coordinated but state-led leadership. That vision begins by recognizing that resilience starts with understanding risk — and turning that understanding into action, before the next storm arrives.

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Sean Lahav serves as associate vice president and Resilience Market Leader at Halff, a full-service infrastructure consulting firm with offices across Florida, including Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee. Matt Bucchin serves as senior vice president and Placemaking Solutions Leader at Halff, bringing extensive planning and community development expertise to projects that advance livability and resilience. Dr. Wes Brooks, the former Chief Resilience Officer for the State of Florida, contributes deep experience in statewide policy and flood adaptation to support integrated, forward-looking resilience strategies.