With historic flooding across the country, including severe storms in the Midwest and devastating hurricanes in the Southeast, 2024 showed the need for flood solutions in every community.
Despite these challenges, this year we saw all levels of government build flood resilience: Communities planned flood projects, states invested in resilient infrastructure, and we worked with Congress and agencies to make it easier for communities to secure funds.
As the year ends, we look back on these achievements and more.
Building local community resilience
AFC on the ground after Hurricane Helene
After catastrophic destruction from Hurricane Helene, AFC supported communities across the Carolinas, meeting with local leaders and state legislators in more than 20 of the communities affected by Helene. We heard about priorities for future resilience and are now building a partnership of leaders.
Long-term resilience priorities of the partnership include:
- Cutting federal and state red tape and reducing bureaucracy to accelerate recoveries.
- Securing funding to integrate resilience into critical infrastructure.
- Investing in accurate, up-to-date flood and landslide data to better understand risk.
- Incorporating flood and landslide risk into state and local planning and projects.
- Examining how private infrastructure creates unique challenges.
AFC cohorts aim to simplify federal funding access
Federal grant processes are complicated and time consuming. To tackle this challenge, AFC launched the Flood Resilient Communities Cohort in nine communities across North Carolina, South Carolina, and Iowa.
AFC worked with each community to provide technical support that helped communities seek funding for flood projects. Ultimately, the 18-month effort:
- Strengthened each community’s understanding of addressing flood risk.
- Built durable partnerships between community-based organizations and their local governments.
- Allowed AFC to identify actionable policy recommendations to simplify the federal process, making it easier for communities — not just in the Cohort, but across the country — to tackle federal applications and build resilience.
Over 40 leaders drive action on flooding at AFC summit
AFC hosted its Local Elected Leaders Summit on Flooding and Sea Level Rise in Washington, D.C., bringing together 43 mayors, county commissioners, and other local leaders from six states.
The three-day summit included sessions on flood solutions and the federal funding landscape, as well as sessions with FEMA and EDA officials and 34 meetings with members of Congress. Following the Summit, AFC secured seven new Federal Champions and 10 new members, and attendees went on to champion flood resilience through op-eds, media coverage, local resolutions, and engagement with state legislators.
Advancing state policy and leadership
AFC is proud of major wins at the state level, crafting policies that reflected coalition member experiences and bringing together local leaders and state legislators to discuss priorities and see flood projects firsthand.
- Florida doubles investment in flood resilience to $200M/year.
- North Carolina invests $30M in transportation infrastructure resilience.
- South Carolina triples budget for Office of Resilience to $6.7M.
- Texas launches first-ever State Flood Plan.
AFC convenes state resilience leaders to build best practices
We hosted 15 senior state leaders at our State Resilience Leaders Workshop at the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado. At the workshop, leaders exchanged ideas and applied lessons learned to their own states. We also coordinated three virtual convenings, covering topics like insurance, FEMA Community Disaster Resilience Zones, and statewide data hubs and vulnerability assessments.
AFC brings together 19 state legislative leaders to tour flood projects
We convened 19 senior state legislators representing 10 states on a trip to the Netherlands to better understand flood issues and identify state solutions to funding, planning, data, and water management. The trip, convened in partnership with the Council of State Governments South, also allowed leaders to connect with and learn from each other and us, building relationships that they can take back to their states.
Unlocking innovative agricultural solutions in Iowa
AFC published first-of-its-kind research on how multi-cropping can protect farmers from floods and prevent damage from catastrophic flooding across a watershed. This research, in partnership with Iowa State University, builds on our ongoing pilot projects in Iowa, where we’re measuring how farmers can reduce flood risk through multi-cropping, strengthen soil health, improve water quality, and increase profitability. This on-the-ground work has informed our recommendations for federal agriculture policy.
Delivering federal funding and policy wins
This year, AFC delivered big wins at the federal level, including:
- Securing $41 million for EPA sewer and stormwater infrastructure grants and $281.5 million for FEMA flood mapping.
- Equipping the Army Corps of Engineers with resources to most effectively help communities recover after disasters, today and into the future.
- Helping military communities partner with the Dept. of Defense on stormwater reuse projects.
- Harnessing the Dept. of Defense’s capabilities to improve federal flood mapping and response to compound flood hazards (e.g., intense rainfall flooding made worse by a hurricane’s storm surge).
Along with these wins, we pressed federal agencies and policymakers to simplify programs, ease funding access, and equip communities with best available tools, such as NOAA’s forthcoming Atlas 15 rainfall dataset.
Expanding tool to find federal funds
Meanwhile, we expanded the Flood Funding Finder — our free online tool that makes it easy to find federal grants that support flood resilience — to include five additional programs that support flood resilience through transportation and nature-based solutions.
Growing our Coalition
This year marked another milestone for our Coalition: We grew to 462 members across 22 states. Since January, AFC has added 48 new members from seven states, including 29 elected officials, 13 cities and counties, four civic leaders, and two businesses.
50+ Federal Champions
AFC has officially recognized 52 Federal Champions from 17 states. Federal Champions are members of Congress dedicated to advancing federal flood solutions in partnership with AFC. In 2024, we welcomed 12 new bipartisan Federal Champions from six states.
AFC is thankful for all those who supported our work and advanced and shared solutions to address flooding. We look forward to driving adaptation to stronger storms, rising seas, and more frequent flooding into 2024 and beyond.
To set up a call with a member of our staff, send us an email at info@floodcoalition.org. Meanwhile, learn more about joining the Coalition.
