Urban Land Magazine
By: Katharine Burgess and Elizabeth Foster
June 18th, 2020

Climate events, especially hurricanes and heat waves, present major risks to communities every year. But in the coming months, communities—already reeling from the consequences of the pandemic—will have to respond to natural disasters with depleted municipal budgets and other complicating factors.

“Across the U.S., climate change and COVID-19 are playing out in tandem,” says Jalonne White-Newsome, senior program officer at the Kresge Foundation, which supports ULI’s Urban Resilience program. “The warming planet drives increasingly extreme weather, compounding the pandemic’s impacts and complicating disaster response. At the same time, these dual threats have exposed the profound inequities that divide and weaken us.”

ULI’s Urban Resilience team interviewed several public leaders in June to identify how U.S. cities are preparing for natural disasters during the COVID-19 pandemic. A key focus was how cities are providing resources to their most vulnerable residents, who are most at risk for both COVID-19 and climate emergencies.

Outlook for Summer 2020

In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center predicted that 2020 will be an active hurricane season, with as many as 13 to 19 named storms. The outlook anticipated a 60 percent chance of an above-normal season, a 30 percent chance of a typical season, and a 10 percent chance of a below-normal season. Already the United States experienced two named tropical storms before the official start of the season on June 1; such an early start … read the full article here.