Earlier in the year, Dare County was awarded financial assistance from the state to perform a risk and vulnerability assessment on Hatteras Island, and to develop a portfolio of planned and prioritized projects.
As part of this program, island residents are currently being encouraged to share their input and insight via a recently launched Dare County Resilient Coastal Communities Program Questionnaire.
The data gathered from questionnaire responses will inform the identification, design, and implementation of resilience projects that will address coastal hazards such as erosion and storm surge, and the questionnaire stems from the new Resilient Coastal Communities Program, which was introduced earlier in 2021.
The N.C. Resilient Coastal Communities Program (RCCP), which is the first of its kind in the state, will serve as North Carolina’s resilience framework for counties and towns all along the coast to develop and implement a locally-driven Resilience Strategy. Modeled after similar programs in other coastal states, the goal is to help individual communities implement projects or activities that will reduce the impacts of coastal and climate hazards, like flooding and storms.
The program is being implemented over four phases:
- Community Engagement and Risk & Vulnerability Assessment
- Planning, Project Selection and Prioritization
- Project Engineering and Design
- Implementation
In March of 2021, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management (DCM) awarded grants to 25 communities for technical assistance in this preliminary risk assessment and resilience planning work, which in turn, led to the development of the county’s new survey.
Phases 1 & 2 are running concurrently under a single contract per community, and a total of $675,000 for all 25 communities has been made available for the completion of these initial phases.
To take the Dare County Resilient Coastal Communities Program Questionnaire, click here.
For more information about the Resilient Coastal Communities program, go to the DCM website.