Many local governments aren’t ready for disasters that are increasingly likely to occur, Tufts research reveals
Climate change makes extreme weather patterns and related disasters more likely, but many local communities aren’t prepared for such events, according to research by Fletcher School graduate student Bethany Tietjen. Photo: Shutterstock
Extreme storms like Hurricane Helene, which hit the Southeast in September and was one of the deadliest hurricanes in the last 50 years in the United States, are becoming more likely due to climate change. Yet many local governments are struggling to prepare for such storms or for the droughts, floods, heat waves, and other weather events they may face in the future, according to research conducted at Tufts.
“Many communities are trying to prepare but they often lack the resources, tools, and the capacity to know exactly what hazards they need to prepare for,” says Bethany Tietjen, F20, a Ph.D. student at The Fletcher School and lead author of a recently published paper on progress and gaps in U.S. adaption policy at the local level. As climate risks change, “most communities in the country are not fully prepared” for the future risks that scientists forecast, she says.
To understand how local governments are planning for possible disasters and adapting to a changing climate, Tietjen and her co-authors studied policies in five counties, in Louisiana, California, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky. The counties were selected to be part of a Red Cross Community Adaptation Program based on their high risk for extreme weather and high levels of what is called social vulnerability, a measure of social determinants of health such as poverty and lack of housing.
“Many communities are trying to prepare [for extreme weather events] but they often lack the resources, tools, and the capacity to know exactly what hazards they need to prepare for,” says Bethany Tietjen, a Ph.D. student at The Fletcher School. Photo: Courtesy of Bethany Tietjen
Tietjen conducted her research with Jenna Clark, A21, F25, under the guidance of climate risk expert Erin Coughlan de Perez, an associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
Here are four key takeaways.
Learning from the past is insufficient
In communities that have experienced problems such as flooding or wildfires, local governments are more likely to have regulations related to those issues, Tietjen says. That response to past disasters is good, but it’s not enough, she argues, since climate change is creating extreme weather events more often, in places that haven’t experienced them before.
Scientists are trying to help communities anticipate future risks and conduct scenario exercises so that they aren’t caught unprepared, she says. Everything from building codes to evacuation plans must be re-evaluated considering climate change, and governments should learn from communities that have already experienced disasters, she says.
“The idea is for other communities to not have to wait until that disaster happens to have those policies and plans in place,” Tietjen says.
Heat is too often overlooked
Many communities “either don't have any policies focused on extreme heat, or if they do, they're very few and far between,” Tietjen says. That’s dangerous, because “heat is actually the deadliest climate hazard” in the United States. Designating cooling centers for extreme heat is one useful way to address this hazard, she says in her paper.
Of the five counties she examined, three did not have heat policies, and officials in the two that did “still expressed concern about a lack of preparedness for extreme heat events,” she writes.
Social infrastructure must be strengthened
Social services such as health care, including mental health care, and affordable housing are an essential part of creating a strong community that can withstand a climate shock or recover from it more easily, Tietjen says.
Communities should prioritize “affordable housing, which is a long-term, not acute, post-disaster challenge,” according to an April 2024 policy brief (PDF) written by Clark, Tietjen, Coughlan de Perez, and others. They say that “better planning and governmental coordination at the federal, state, and local levels is needed to provide rapid, mid- to long-term affordable housing after a disaster. Ensuring that affordable housing is available before extreme weather events can minimize strain on housing stock in the aftermath of an extreme event.”
Similarly, access to mental health resources is needed for both first responders and other members of a community affected by a disaster, particularly as individuals navigate the disaster relief application system, the policy brief states.
Early warning systems should be designed to reach all members of the community, including people who speak different languages, by providing messages in those languages and by planning in advance for trusted messengers to convey them, Tietjen says.
And policymakers should pay extra attention to more vulnerable members of the community “because often it's the elderly or unhoused populations who are most harmed in disaster situations,” she says.
Policies that don’t mention climate change may still help
In today’s partisan political atmosphere, even the term climate change can be contentious. States with more liberal citizens and greater climate vulnerability are more likely to adopt policies that are explicitly called climate adaptation plans, according to research Tietjen cites. She says such policies are valuable because they consider the changing climate risks these communities might experience in the future, but they aren’t the only kinds of plans that help communities prepare for climate hazards like floods or severe storms.
Municipal flood zoning or heat preparedness plans, for example, still do the work of helping communities adapt, Tietjen says, and may gain wider backing in some regions of the country without the climate change label. “It can be easier to build a coalition around the idea of responding to and preparing for a future disaster versus the political nature of calling something climate adaptation,” she says.
