#1> Why Rebuilding After Disasters Is Largely a Legal Challenge

After a major natural disaster, the redevelopment process opens up what might seem like intractable legal issues, including property buy-outs, beach access, insurance policy, and cross-jurisdictional governance. As the Sandy-affected region rebuilds to better confront future storms, planners and designers need to develop systems for addressing legal infrastructure as much as the physical environment. Without doing this, designs risk lingering on computer screens and drawing boards without implementation.

Law is site-specific, so regional strategies can’t be addressed in sweepingly generalized legal principles.

Design in the physical environment involves adjusting to natural constraints and finding ways to work around them. The same can be said about the law. Any implementation proposal must take into account the legal structure that allocates decision-making power to federal, state, and local governments. All three levels of government have enacted rules that determine what can and cannot be done both along the coasts and in nearby areas subject to flooding.

#2> From the UNC School of Government. * * * faculty member Norma Houston presented a workshop on emergency management to a group of local government officials about the importance of adequate planning in a state of emergency at the 2013 North Carolina League of Municipalities Annual Conference. As a researcher that has provided great insight on how disaster stricken communities can recover and rebuild over time, I thought you would be interested in sharing our re-cap of her presentation with readers on your blog:

 http://onlinempa.unc.edu/emergency-management-workshop-recap/

Houston, an expert in emergency management law and a former Dare County attorney, teaches state government in the School of Government’s graduate program in public administration. She is one of the many faculty members that assists local government agencies to help them prepare the community for hurricanes and natural disasters.