WASHINGTON, DC-The timing could not be any more perfect. At the very height of hurricane season, the Obama Administration--via its Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force--has released a rebuilding strategy that it hopes communities affected by natural disasters will follow. The blueprint is also aimed at helping the Sandy-affected areas continue to rebuild.

Superstorm Sandy crashed ashore on October 29, 2012. The second costliest hurricane in the US, it caused widespread destruction with damages estimated to be $68 billion. In the aftermath of the storm, as the difficulties many communities were having in restarting and rebuilding became clear, President Obama put together the taskforce, chaired by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan.

The Rebuilding Strategy contains 69 policy recommendations, many of which will have a significant impact on how the region rebuilds—and hopefully create more resilient communities going forward. Some of the task force's policies and principles were also incorporated into President Obama's Climate Action Plan. The Rebuilding Strategy calls for a federal department or agency to carry out implementation of these recommendations. A team will also track and release data on Federal spending from the Sandy supplemental funding bill.

The top five recommendations from the report are:

RECOMMENDATION #1: Facilitate the incorporation of future risk assessment, such as sea level rise, into rebuilding efforts with the development of a sea level rise tool.

RECOMMENDATION #2: Develop a minimum flood risk reduction standard for major Federal investment that takes into account data on current and future flood risk.

RECOMMENDATION #3: Create a design competition to develop innovative resilient design solutions that address the Sandy-affected region's most pressing vulnerabilities.

RECOMMENDATION #4: Apply Infrastructure Resilience Guidelines to all Federal infrastructure investments and projects for Sandy recovery.

RECOMMENDATION #5: Consider applying the Infrastructure Resilience Guidelines nationally.

Instant Insights /

Obama Administration Releases Rebuilding Plan

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