Game of Floods - Windy Point
Homeowner / Teacher
Assignment: Read the role assignment and background reading below, then answer the questions at the end.
Role Assignment:
You are a teacher at the local elementary school, and are also a home-owner and year-round resident of Windy Point. Your Windy Point home has been in your family for generations - you have pictures of your home sitting by itself in the dunes, before the neighborhood got so built up! You have deep roots in the Windy Point community, particularly among the other year-round residents. You don’t know what you’d do if a storm damaged your home – you love Windy Point, but aren’t sure you could afford to rebuild here. You know that some people in coastal areas are elevating their homes to make them more flood-proof, but you just can’t afford to do that right now.
Background Reading:
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Students Promote Flood Resilience and Reduce Insurance Costs
Middle school students are working to help residents recognize and reduce flood risk in their coastal Georgia city. Their efforts are also earning the community credits to lower their costs for flood insurance.
The town of St. Marys, Georgia is located on the coast and vulnerable to flooding, particularly during hurricanes. St. Marys experienced extensive flooding in both 2016 and 2017 as a result of Hurricanes Matthew and Irma. Compared to other rural coastal communities, St. Marys has a large number of families with school-age children because it is located next to the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay. Because personnel are often assigned to the base temporarily, many of the families are only there for a short time.
For Jeff Adams, St. Marys community development director, this was very concerning: “That was another thing we were running up against. We have such a transient community, people are not aware of the threats of hurricanes or river flooding or sea rise. They don’t know about storm surge. Just because the hurricane might not hit directly, they could still face flooding.”
Flooding in St. Marys during Hurricane Matthew.
Hurricane Matthew moving up the coast. St. Marys is located on the border between Georgia and Florida.
Adams and his colleague Scott Brazell decided that they needed a public information program to help spread the word in St. Marys about flooding risks related to storms. They decided to do this in an interesting way: they partnered with seventh grade students at St. Marys Middle School.
“We thought we could reach more people through the kids,” Adams says. “Kids bring this stuff home and they get excited about it and it becomes kind of a viral thing, you reach the adults through the kids.”
Brazell and Adams worked with the students to map out low-lying areas around the school that might flood. They also took samples from standing water in these areas to test for water quality, and learned about public health concerns from flooding. The students and community leaders worked together to develop a flood awareness education program that they could present to adults in the community.
The students’ efforts helped make St. Marys safer during extreme weather events. The bonus? They also helped reduce the cost of flood insurance premiums for their communities! The Federal Emergency Management System (FEMA) has a special program that gives communities credits for steps they take to reduce their risks from flooding, including public information campaigns. Research has shown that well-informed people make better decisions about flooding. They take steps to protect themselves and their property by retrofitting their homes, buying flood insurance, and planning actions they will take during the next flood. In its first year as part of the program, it is estimated that residents saved over $87,000 on their flood insurance premiums.
St. Marys community members learning about coastal flooding risks
Questions:
1. Why is Jeff Adams concerned about the consequence of flooding in St. Marys?
2. Why did Jeff and Scott decide to work with middle school students to educate people about floods?
3. How did the students help the town save money?
4. Answer this question in character as a teacher and Windy Point resident (see the role description at the top). What is the biggest challenge currently facing the Windy Point neighborhood, and what is one thing that could be done to address it?
Once you have answered the above questions, move on to Part 2 here.