Alison Higgins, Sustainability Coordinator for the city of Key West, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday morning to talk about the adaptation plan.
Vulnerability assessment maps are available online.
Higgins said, “We’ve hit a major milestone. The first part of the grant that we got to do our adaptation plan was to do what’s called the vulnerability assessments. It is a very prescribed specific thing. It’s actually in state statutes to figure out your risk from flooding and flooding only. So they had us look at regular rainfall, but also the 100 year rainfall and they looked at king tides and we looked at longterm sea level rise, and then they wanted us to look at all those things on top of each other, to figure out where what areas we had were the most susceptible. So that then called out some areas of hotspots, you need to look at critical facilities only. So we’re talking about hospitals, clinics, fires stations, police stations, but also communications areas and energy. Anything that has to do with the electric system or your water valves, anywhere those things are settled how low they enter the ground. So we went through, I want to say 20 different data sets that are available publicly to pull those assets out, noting, that not many of those are owned by the city, but some are, but the intent is to, it doesn’t matter if the energy piece isn’t owned by the city, we can at least help flag it. The beauty about going through this state statute system is if it’s flagged on our map, Keys Energy can use this map as additional reasons to get grants because they are on our vulnerability assessments. So they come up with the critical assets, and then they actually screen those for how important those assets are and then how at risk are they? Are they at risk in the next five years? Are they risk in 20, 25 years? If they get wet are they instantly out and everybody’s without? Or is it it’ll just do some damage and there’ll be a brownout or something like that. So what is the criticality of that function. Once they’ve gone through duration and criticality, everything gets given a score, which on the maps just translates into yellow, orange, or red as for how important and how risky these places are. The 90% draft is done. That’s what we just did a presentation on just a week and a half ago, the video from that presentation, so that you can understand more of the background is on the city’s YouTube sites, the city of Key West, and its adaptation plan, public meeting number three, and to pour over the maps themselves, you can go to the website for the project, which is keywestadaptationplan.com. So both the flooding maps alone, as well as the critical asset maps are on there.”
The plan is to create a roadmap for the city to boost the ability to recover and endure climate issues.
Higgins said, “The next step, so I’m really excited about this. This is where we actually get into like, what do you do about it? So we are forming seven working groups that each are taking on a different segments of the plan. So whether it’s water and power, housing and shelter, economic recovery, environmental, health and wellness, there are seven different pieces and experts in those areas will sit down and go beyond just flooding. So we’re going to be talking about heat, we’re going to be talking about increased winds. What threats do those pose to those subjects and what can be done about them so that we are either not as harmed when they show up or bounce back more quickly if there is some damage?”
This is a 10 year strategy in the end.
Higgins said, “We’re going to have 10 years worth of prioritized projects across all seven of those themes and they’re going to come up with a working budget, it’s not going to be exact, but it’s going to be within scale of what each action solution will cost. Then they’re going to tie it to potential grants that we know of. So year one, you should work on this. And here is this state, federal, local grant that would match with that, by the way that needs a 25% match. So you’re going to need a budget this much of your own in order to achieve this project at this cost. So it’s really going to make a difference.”
There is an e-newsletter that can be found on the website, too.
The impacts for future climate events are being looked at for the years 2040, 2070 and 2100.
Higgins said, “Because there’s such major things that may need to be done, thinking about 2100 now helps us prepare to you get there.”
Green building is the theme for July’s Green Drinks.
Higgins said, “I’m really excited that green drinks has came back. It was started by two lonely women named Julie a long, long time ago. Green Drinks is actually an international thing. It’s just a place in time where folks get together that are of a green mind to network, learn more. The city’s great energy and adaptation coordinator expressed an interest to get more involved and so she has spearheaded the beginning of green drinks, again. So July 16, this coming Tuesday from 5:30 until 7, actually speakers go on at six, so gives you time to show up or be a little late and mingle. Then we have different speakers. So last month was the kickoff for it and we did Green Business Certification. If you come to the Sidebar, so it’s the backside of Aqua. They actually give you 24% off food and 40% off drinks. This time we’re talking green building. So I’m going to be talking about some of the cool stuff the city has done and what certifications are out there and our senior architect is going to be talking about a resilience hub and what we’ve got slated for the Frederick Douglass Gym Community Center, which is going up right now. So what other energy in water and safety redundancies have we put into that area to help that area community of our island?”
ROGO and BPAS will also be discussed.
Higgins said, “Because our residential building credits are scarce, we have a competitive system, every local government around the Keys does in order to dole those out. So we have certain rules, minimums and that’s getting a basic bronze certification for green building, putting in a cistern and also building higher than the Florida building code says for flood. So what’s amazing is through this progress, more people look at those aspects. So we’ve had 91,000 gallons worth of cisterns built and 57% of our 930 units that have been allocated are greater than bronze certification. We’ve got 59 EV conduits that have been put in, and we had 375 houses built higher than that 1.5. minimum for building code. So if you get certified as a house, your house sells quicker and closer to the selling price granted, right here, right now. Everything sells, everything slowed down a little bit. We are looking into for the future, a code plus sort of idea. We want to do it for the city first, and then at first voluntarily and then the intent is mandatory. There are little things like when you’re putting on your roof, there’s a strap that ties your roof to your wall and code says that metal strap needs to wrap around, I’m going to get this wrong, potentially, but the difference is the same. It has to wrap around once and have like one nail. That’s code. If you wrap it around one half more times and put two more nails in it, your insurance will give you 15 to 20% more off your premium. Why aren’t we all doing this? Only because it’s in that super tight area where your roof meets your wall, you can’t just go in and do it at any time. It really needs to happen when you’re when you’re putting in a new roof. I can’t decide tomorrow that that’s the thing I’m going to fix. So those pieces that make you save money for not a lot extra effort are the things we are looking to really make sure people know about.”