People in the Pioneer Valley still talk about Tropical Storm Irene. The downgraded hurricane in August 2011 hovered over western Massachusetts and southern Vermont, smothering the region in a thick blanket of rain. Swollen rivers and streams ate roads, threatened villages, took out homes and businesses.
Irene was ranked as the 12th-costliest hurricane in United States history. Whether or not you believe industrial age pollution is causing global warming, it’s hard to deny that we seem to be seeing more extreme weather events, which climate scientists have predicted would be the early effects of even slight rises in global temperatures.
Here again the phrase “think globally, act locally” provides us guidance. While individual towns on their own can do only so much to reverse the carbon buildup in the atmosphere, we can nonetheless begin to find ways to roll with the punches that are likely to come, whether we curtail greenhouse gas releases or not. That’s why we’re hearing the term “resilience” so much these days.
And the state government has begun to help our cities and towns build resilience needed for responding to other potential Irenes in our future.
Local government officials from western Massachusetts met recently for a presentation on the state Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program, the initiative to address the effects of climate change.
The state provides grants from $10,000 to $400,000 to help towns plan for and cope with the next Irene.
Floods in central and western Massachusetts have become more frequent in recent years, according to Kathleen Theoharides, assistant secretary of climate change, for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Many towns in the area have had problems with infrastructure breaking down, especially culverts and small bridges that cannot handle major flooding. The Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program provides money for towns to repair and rebuild old infrastructure, to be more resilient against extreme weather.
Theoharides explained that the program functions by building on and improving the local infrastructure that is already in place.
During Irene, parts of Routes 5 and 10 in Deerfield were cut off by floodwaters because culverts under the state highway were not robust enough, for example. Now Deerfield has joined the state program and has begun planning how to beef up its infrastructure to protect its main north-south thoroughfare.
There are multiple grants available, and they require a contribution from the town of at least 25 percent. The Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness program began in 2017. For 2018, the program is receiving 10 times more funding than it did last year.
Deerfield is among the towns that enrolled in the program last year. Carolyn Ness, chairwoman of the Select Board, says Deerfield has had to be proactive in addressing the effects of extreme weather because of its location between the Connecticut River on its east side and the Deerfield River, which splits from the Connecticut at the town’s northern border with Greenfield, on its west side.
“This program, really, I have to say, works,” says Ness, a longtime Select Board member who was re-elected earlier this month. “After many years of working with different programs, this is by far the best.”
Ness said the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program enables small communities to endure intense weather events without going bankrupt.
Ness knows what she’s talking about and has taken her town into the vanguard of planning for municipal resilience. Other towns built on major rivers should follow Deerfield’s lead and join the program.
Everyone likes to talk about being proactive. Here’s a program that actually encourages and funds proactive resilience planning and construction.