Florida has a lot to be proud of. It has some of the best beaches on Earth, world-class entertainment, strong entrepreneurial values, and a cultural identity found nowhere else in the country.
It also has something increasingly rare in the U.S. — treating climate preparedness as a collective responsibility, not a partisan cause.
Public officials and the communities they serve across the Sunshine State understand that climate resilience is a basic affordability issue. Updated public infrastructure, stronger homes and even natural coastal solutions can protect people’s property and control insurance and taxpayer costs.
Jaclyn de Medicci Bruneau is director of insurance at the sustainability nonprofit Ceres. (courtesy, Jaclyn de Medicci Bruneau)
Five years ago, the state created the Resilient Florida Program to help boost Florida’s efforts to protect inland waterways, coastlines, and shores, which all provide natural defenses against sea level rise. Since then, Resilient Florida has distributed more than $1 billion to local governments that then match the funding.
These projects are making a significant difference for residents who’ve been dealing with worsening flooding in their neighborhoods.
With more than $79 million in grants, Miami Beach embarked on a comprehensive effort to assess the city’s vulnerability to sea-level rise and develop a plan for adapting to these changing conditions. In practice, that funding is helping create ongoing opportunities for people in the community to share with officials their experiences with flooding in their neighborhoods, how those risks have impacted their lives, and how the city could best respond to these challenges.
With a $24 million grant, Fort Lauderdale’s Progresso Village, one of the city’s most vulnerable neighborhoods to flooding, is building new stormwater management infrastructure to help improve drainage and prepare communities for the impacts of flooding and storm surge.
The Florida Legislature is also working to ease the financial burden on homeowners by addressing rising property insurance costs through the My Safe Florida Home Program. The initiative provides free wind mitigation inspections and grants for up to $10,000 for homeowners to upgrade their homes against hurricanes and safeguard their property. The grants help pay for home improvements like upgrading roof coverings, retrofitting doors and windows, and reinforcing connections between walls and roofs.
According to the News Service of Florida, in 2023, homeowners who received funding from this program to upgrade their homes reported saving an average of $1,014 annually in insurance premiums.
And this month, a law that was approved unanimously by state legislators took effect, strengthening coastal protections through nature-based solutions.
The new law will make it easier to use natural features such as mangroves, seagrasses and dunes to protect Florida’s 1,300-mile coastline. These defenses, when protected or restored, act as natural barriers against dangerous, costly storm surge, protect against erosion, and keep communities safe from storms.
These bipartisan programs and initiatives are helping Floridians lower costs and keep communities safe. But we can’t take that progress for granted.
In Washington, even basic disaster protections are too often consumed by partisan gridlock. There’s perhaps no better modern example of that than the funding battle for FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program.
When the federal government funds programs only through short-term extensions, local governments are prevented from effectively planning and implementing disaster management budgets.
Policymakers in Washington should look to Florida for a lesson in putting partisanship aside to protect people and lower costs.
Climate preparedness works best when leaders provide communities with stable funding, long-term certainty, and the freedom to plan.
Jaclyn de Medicci Bruneau is director of insurance at the sustainability nonprofit Ceres. She resides in West Bend, Wisconsin.