Spring flooding and COVID-19 collide in the Midwest: challenges and considerations for local governments
As spring flooding threatens cities across the Midwest, local government leaders on the frontlines of COVID-19 prepare for a “dual disaster” response.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) 2020 spring flooding outlook estimates that 128 million people face a heightened risk of flooding from now through the end of May. Although slow to spread to rural America, the outbreak of COVID-19 across the United States is already debilitating communities. It is also creating a hazardous combination of threats in the Midwest. The map below shows confirmed cases of COVID-19 from Midwestern counties, alongside, and often overlapping, areas at risk of major or moderate spring flooding.
Emergency managers at the federal, state, and local levels must respond to flooding and COVID-19 in tandem, rather than as isolated threats. Recognizing how both disasters disrupt people’s lives, we consider spring flooding and COVID-19 to be “threat multipliers,” meaning that the devastating effects of one threat intensify the effects of the other.
Although flooding and COVID-19 both pose challenges across the U.S., communities in the Midwest face outsized risk for several reasons:
- Communities across the Midwest are still rebuilding and recovering from the devastating flooding of 2019. In the Missouri River Basin, 855 levee systems protect more than half a million people. Last year, a brutal combination of above-average precipitation, spring runoff, and frozen ground led to the failure of many levees. Some municipalities are still waiting for reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), and one analysis concluded that at least 144 levee systems still required rehabilitation. In other words, communities remain vulnerable to a new wave of flooding this year.
- Rural communities have greater difficulty accessing healthcare. Rural Americans, on average, live twice as far away from a hospital as urban Americans — 10.5 miles versus 4.4 miles. Spring flooding in the Midwest is projected to deeply affect rural communities, some of which are far away from medical infrastructure. A greater distance means more miles of roads, bridges, and other infrastructure that require protection from spring floods.
- Not all hospitals have intensive care units. While most Americans live close to a hospital, many hospitals may still be incapable of helping seriously ill COVID-19 patients. More than half of counties in the U.S. lack a hospital with an intensive care unit — which is equipped with the necessary tools, such as ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) — to care for COVID-19 patients. The underresourcing of hospitals poses a heightened risk for the 7 million rural Americans who are age 60 or older.
Addressing these risks requires an all-hands-on-deck approach. The Iowa Flood Center (IFC) recognizes the challenges that rural communities face in responding to COVID-19 and the threat of spring flooding. To help Iowa’s communities, emergency responders, and state agencies coordinate a dual disaster response, IFC researchers have added public health information to their unique Iowa Flood Information System (IFIS) online web platform. IFIS displays real-time flood alerts and forecasts for more than 1,000 locations in the state. One new feature allows users to visualize concentrated areas of COVID-19 cases where flooding may also be occurring.
Amid a global pandemic, communities of every size across the Midwest must grapple with new challenges arising from the intersection of materially different, yet overlapping disasters: spring flooding and COVID-19. In this piece, we explore three of the challenges facing local decisionmakers: evacuating residents while following social distancing guidelines, recruiting volunteers while ensuring their safety, and financially supporting a dual disaster response while managing a budget shortfall.
Challenge 1: Coordinating evacuations while following social distancing guidelines
Before a disaster strikes, community members at risk often relocate to another location, such as an evacuation shelter. While sheltering is typically a recommended response to hurricanes, riverine flooding, and tornadoes, social distancing requirements to prevent the spread of COVID-19 may complicate the use of community evacuation shelters. Ushering a hundred people into a church or onto an open gymnasium floor may lower their flood risk but heighten their risk of exposure to COVID-19.
Given the complexity of coordinating an evacuation under these conditions, local officials should plan ahead to maximize their preparation. For example, opening additional shelters would give evacuees space to be safe from flooding while continuing to practice social distancing. Local governments should anticipate that coordinating a multifaceted dual disaster response will require more time to plan and execute, and they should start to develop their response plans early — before flooding becomes a problem. Rising unemployment figures and economic stress also affect residents. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs since the outbreak of COVID-19, and residents of Midwestern states like Michigan, Ohio, and Minnesota are filing for unemployment at a rate higher than the 13% national average. As a result, more people may rely on government support during an extended evacuation rather than use their own means to seek safety from a disaster.
Here are several other challenges local governments should consider when preparing a potential evacuation:
- Communicating changes in public information. COVID-19 will likely force local governments to adjust their regular instructions for flooding and emergency shelter locations. Decisionmakers will need to be ready to answer many questions, such as: Where should people currently living with the virus evacuate to for safety? What should people who do not know their health status and need to be quarantined do? Clearly communicating the answers to these and other questions may save lives if flood conditions change rapidly and force people to evacuate on short notice. Considering that one-third of rural households lack internet access, and Midwestern hubs like Detroit and Minneapolis are home to many residents who may not be fluent in English, emergency planners should proactively account for how to provide updates to every household in their communities.
- Limiting conflicting information. If suddenly ordered to evacuate, some residents might hesitate to leave. Evacuation orders could seem contradictory to previously established instructions to avoid public gatherings, stay at home, and minimize travel. It’s important for local governments — in the event of a flood emergency — to communicate their plan, the locations of pre-designated shelter sites, and the protective measures they are practicing to ensure public health safety at shelters.
- Supporting residents who lack resources. While everyone has been affected by the spread of COVID-19, not everyone is affected in the same way. For those facing a loss of a job, reduced hours, or other financial hardships, help from the federal government might not arrive soon enough. Millions of Americans are still waiting to receive their $1,200 stimulus check in addition to their 2019 tax refund. These challenges may prevent some people from filling their gas tanks or stocking up on enough food in their pantries. As the overlapping flooding and pandemic crises continue to evolve, emergency planners should consider how to ensure these vulnerable populations can access resources.
Guidance for evacuating during COVID-19
In states such as Oklahoma, Alabama, and Mississippi, the current guidance (as of this post’s publication date) is that residents should prioritize safety from an immediate disaster over safety from COVID-19. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey suspended social distancing guidelines to allow people to gather in emergency shelters when tornadoes struck the Southern U.S. in early April.
Local decisionmakers should also follow the expert guidance of the American Red Cross when implementing sheltering and feeding measures during a pandemic. The Red Cross’ recently revised guidelines recommend that communities use larger facilities for shelters to prevent understaffing and limit the resource strain likely to occur if evacuees were spread across multiple, smaller shelters.
Creative resources to support emergency sheltering
Communities that need space can also think creatively about how to leverage existing resources. The University of Wisconsin at Madison is exploring using residence hall rooms as emergency overflow for area hospitals. Chicago is repurposing five area hotels to house patients with minor illnesses so that hospitals can focus on their most critical patients. These novel housing solutions, however, come with a tradeoff: Communities that use these facilities to supplement hospital bed capacity will not be able to also use them for evacuees during a flood response. Local governments should evaluate all options, reserving some sheltering space for people living with COVID-19 and other space for flood responses.
Challenge 2: Recruiting volunteers to support a disaster response while ensuring their safety
Local volunteers are critical in a disaster response. Emergency planners, however, fear that social distancing guidelines and general anxieties about COVID-19 will reduce the number of people willing to volunteer. This potential reluctance to volunteer is achingly concerning for organizations like the American Red Cross, for whom more than 90% of their work is carried out through volunteers.
Volunteer staffing challenges posed by COVID-19 are also exacerbated by several additional factors:
- Navigating equipment shortages. Volunteers who help with recovery after floods often require special gear, such as N95 masks, to protect themselves from mold and mildew in damaged homes. Due to COVID-19, equipment is in short supply, and medical professionals contending with the pandemic will be prioritized over flood volunteers.
- Protecting vulnerable volunteers. Many who volunteer to help with post-disaster cleanup are over 60 years old and at a greater risk of serious illness from COVID-19. To reduce risk of exposure, new guidelines from the American Red Cross recommend maximizing the amount of emergency response work — such as managing logistics, arranging technology, planning, and reporting — that can be completed virtually.
- Adjusting for underresourced food banks. Because of COVID-19-related stay-at-home orders, more Americans are cooking at home instead of eating out. The increase in demand for groceries has left grocery stores with less food on their shelves to donate to food banks and soup kitchens. Social distancing guidelines and movement restrictions, along with less corporate volunteer days, are leaving some food banks understaffed. Additionally, COVID-19 deepens and widens the economic hardship some people experience, which may reduce the number of people donating goods. COVID-19 has already created a sharp spike in demand for food pantries everywhere, and even more people will need assistance following a flood disaster.
Local decisionmakers will have to consider creative solutions to leverage their staff and volunteers while also minimizing their exposure to the virus. For example, public works field employees in the City of Rock Island, Illinois, stagger their hours by rotating on a one-day-on, one-day-off schedule that keeps the workforce healthy by minimizing social interactions.
Mutual aid as a means to receive additional resources in a disaster
Another tool to maximize resources during a flood disaster is a mutual aid agreement. A mutual aid agreement is a written agreement among agencies, organizations, and jurisdictions to lend assistance in the form of personnel, equipment, and other resources or services in the event of a disaster. Due to the substantial and sprawling demands required by the COVID-19 response, resources related to healthcare and mass care — sheltering, feeding, and related services — are likely already stretched to capacity and may be unavailable for mutual aid requests to other jurisdictions. However, other disaster response equipment, such as construction equipment to assist with debris removal, may still be available. For example, Janesville, Wisconsin, entered into a mutual aid agreement to lend water utility staff to the City of Edgerton should Edgerton see a reduction in their limited staff capacity.
Prior to a flood event, local governments should evaluate their existing mutual aid agreements to assess how much COVID-19 has already depleted resources and what would still be available in a flood emergency. If possible, local governments should focus on activating mutual aid at the local level, rather than at the state or interstate levels, to reduce long-distance travel that would increase risk of exposure to the virus.
Challenge 3: Managing a budget shortfall while leading a dual disaster response
As isolated events, COVID-19 and spring flooding could force many local governments to stretch their budgets to the limit. The compounding nature of these dual disasters, however, exacerbates and exposes existing vulnerabilities in an already underresourced system.
Communities in the Midwest face an outsized risk of flooding and COVID-19, yet a couple of factors suggest that they will also have access to fewer resources to address those threats:
- Managing declining local budgets. A local government’s tax structure (i.e., its sources of tax revenue) affects its ability to fund an effective disaster response. Communities in America’s heartland are more likely to rely on income or sales taxes to support their budgets than other forms of revenue. As unemployment rates skyrocket and people have less money to spend, communities in the Midwest are set up to be among the most hurt by a slowing economy. Furthermore, property taxes, normally a stable source of tax revenue for the government, may not be reliable in the near-term if states waive penalties for late payments.
- Navigating available state resources. To supplement their own disaster response resources, local jurisdictions often turn to the state for emergency assistance. However, state budgets struggle with the same complications as local budgets: Unemployment and a shuttering economy reduce tax revenues and create budget shortfalls. In Michigan, heavy rains in February 2020 contributed to record- and near record-high water levels on the Great Lakes, causing flooding and erosion that damaged roadways and could cost up to $100 million to repair. Unless Michigan receives federal disaster relief funds, the state will need to fund recovery efforts through its already-strained state budget. Obtaining emergency appropriations to assist communities with flood recovery may prove challenging, however, as state funding may be prioritized for addressing COVID-19.
A local government facing a budget shortfall may struggle to cover their cost share requirements for federal disaster relief programs, such as FEMA’s Public Assistance program. Public Assistance supports disaster recovery by providing grants for debris removal, emergency protective measures, and public infrastructure repair. Local governments are responsible for covering ~12.5% of the costs for eligible activities, which can strain their budgets if they need to recover from consecutive and overlapping disasters. Since many communities across the Midwest are still recovering from severe 2019 flooding, local governments may not have extensive cash on hand to cover their cost share for COVID-19 and any potential spring flooding this year. Local governments may also have decreased staff capacity due to COVID-19, which could inhibit their ability to process documentation and follow FEMA’s complex grant compliance requirements.
Emergency procurement contracts as a cost reduction strategy
Before a flooding event, local governments should review their emergency procurement contracts or consider forming new contracts to ensure they will have access to necessary resources during these uniquely challenging times. In their newly published Financial Management Guide, FEMA notes that a pre-existing contract can expedite response operations in a disaster and save local governments money, since the costs of response functions are fixed in the terms of the contract.
Regional efforts to coordinate a dual disaster response
Local governments could also build a coalition with their neighbors to exchange learnings and coordinate a response. The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative (MRCTI) adapted rapidly to COVID-19’s transmission across the country by convening Mississippi River mayors for a digital meeting in March with federal agencies and the Red Cross to discuss their earnest efforts in responding to the dual disasters. MRCTI also developed a series of resource guides (available on their website) that provide actionable information to support mayors in their response to COVID-19, such as best practices for local governments to include in an emergency declaration and a comprehensive summary of programs funded in the CARES Act. Furthermore, MRCTI linked their member cities directly to PPE outlets. This allows mayors to secure thousands of units of PPE to address flooding and major storms while containing the COVID-19 pandemic. MRCTI is helping mayors stem the economic fallout of the pandemic by advocating collectively for city revenue replacement in one of the next stimulus vehicles. Collaborating with neighboring jurisdictions can help local governments stretch every dollar in their budgets while coordinating a powerful dual disaster response.
Learning from the past to prepare for the future
To meet the challenges of COVID-19 and spring flooding that face the Midwest, we must look to lessons learned from past disasters. Revisiting lessons learned, with an all-hazards mindset, allows government officials and emergency managers to anticipate obstacles, identify new solutions, and understand the limitations of current capabilities and resources.
We also know that more can be done. The federal government spends much more money on post-disaster recovery than pre-disaster mitigation. Between 2005 and 2017, FEMA spent $81 billion on natural disaster relief, of which only $37 billion went toward preparedness and mitigation. Additionally, emergency spending on disasters has exceeded non-emergency preparedness spending every year since 2006. Considering that every one dollar invested in pre-disaster mitigation saves an average of six dollars in disaster aid relief, policymakers should invest more on the front end to help communities avoid preventable hardships and invest in resilience before disaster strikes.
FEMA’s new Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, which we cover in another Medium post, aims to shift this imbalance toward pre-disaster mitigation. Though funding will vary and is up to the discretion of FEMA, BRIC is expected to provide an estimated $400–600 million annually in grants to states, local governments, tribes, and territories to undertake hazard mitigation projects that reduce the risk of disasters and natural hazards. FEMA anticipates the grant’s inaugural application period will open in fall 2020, and the agency is accepting comments and input on the proposed policy framework through May 11.
The path forward in the response to spring flooding and COVID-19 will prove difficult and challenging. It is essential to recognize that managing a dual disaster response does not begin when the floodwaters rise. Local leaders can use lessons learned from past disasters — coupled with what they are actively learning from their COVID-19 responses — to envision how to make their communities more resilient in the weeks, months, and years ahead.
This post was authored by Jared Melville, Program Analyst, with Lindsey Holman, Emergency Management Specialist.
The American Flood Coalition is a nonpartisan group of cities, elected officials, military leaders, businesses, and civic groups that have come together to drive adaptation to the reality of higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding through national solutions that support flood-affected communities and protect our nation’s residents, economy, and military installations. The Coalition has over 200 members across 17 states.
Cities, towns, elected officials, businesses, and local leaders wishing to join the American Flood Coalition or read more about the organization’s work can visit the Coalition’s website (floodcoalition.org) to find out more.
