Date Posted: August 14, 2019
 |
NOAA’s Weather-Ready Nation is about building community resilience in the face of increasing vulnerability to extreme weather and water events.
The People of Weather-Ready Nation is an interview series that sits down with some of the people responsible for building a Weather-Ready Nation. We recently talked to Leslie Chapman-Henderson , the president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH), the country’s leading consumer advocate for strengthening homes and safeguarding families from natural and manmade disasters.
1. What does a Weather-Ready Nation mean to you?
At the nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH), our focus is on family and individual resilience derived from safe, strong, and durable homes. Our vision of a Weather-Ready Nation is one where homes, buildings, and work places are constructed in a way that allows communities to bounce back swiftly after any type of disaster, including earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, lightning, tornados, and wildfires.
2. How are you helping to build a Weather-Ready Nation?
We empower people about how to build, buy, or select a home that can survive when tested by nature. We do this by convening disaster safety partners and conveying information through in-person, digital, and programmatic efforts.
One example is #HurricaneStrong, a nationally-recognized multi-channel initiative led by FLASH and FEMA, NOAA, and The Weather Channel. Through #HurricaneStrong, 19,000 Twitter contributors have generated 66,000 tweets, helping to streamline public outreach and hurricane communication efforts.
#HurricaneStrong is now available as a designation program for local leaders to promote community resilience. The criteria focus on building codes, floodplain management, NOAA StormReady status, business and school readiness, and more.
3. What is the biggest challenge you see in making the nation ready, responsive, and resilient to extreme events?
Our greatest challenge is the lack of consumer transparency regarding what it takes to be resilient. As evidence, our newest national research indicates that Americans are largely unaware that only one out of three homes are built in a way that optimizes disaster-resilient construction methods. We’ve created No Code. No Confidence., a campaign to increase community safety and resilience by raising awareness of building code adoption statuses to address the perception gap. The effort features clever social advertising, videos, and a new InspectToProtect.org website that offers users the ability to look up their codes and learn more.
About:
Leslie Chapman-Henderson is the president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH), the country’s leading consumer advocate for strengthening homes and safeguarding families from natural and manmade disasters.
Links:
http://flash.org/
