This past December and January will be remembered as one of the rainiest, stormiest stretches of weather Rhode Island has experienced in years. In December, a powerful storm battered Rhode Island communities with 60-mile-per-hour winds and more than 2 inches of rain, resulting in widespread flooding impacting homeowners and businesses. Due to the extensive damage, Governor Dan McKee issued a disaster declaration to pave the way to access federal relief funds.
While still recovering from December’s flooding, Rhode Island was again hit with a major storm in January, with Providence receiving more than 3 inches of rain, and Smithfield receiving 5 inches. Widespread flooding impacted communities across the state. Along Rhode Island’s coast, the storm caused some of the worst coastal erosion seen since 2012′s Superstorm Sandy, with the communities of South Kingstown, Westerly, Narragansett, and Charlestown being particularly hard hit.
Just how wet have things been? According to the National Weather Service Boston, portions of Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts reported between 8-10 inches of liquid equivalent (rain and melted snow) in January. That’s 300% more than a normal January.
While this is a dramatic amount of rain, flooding, and property damage, the unfortunate reality is such storms are becoming more and more frequent. Climate change is driving more intense storms that produce more rain, and, in conjunction with sea level rise, is increasing the frequency and intensity of flooding.
In other words, these events are shaping our shifting environment and communities must adapt to this evolving reality.
Rhode Island’s infrastructure, much of it put in place decades ago, is simply not ready for the impacts of our present circumstances. With more frequent severe flooding and coastal erosion impacting our communities, now is the time to invest in a new generation of resilient infrastructure solutions capable of better handling the volume of stormwater runoff and coastal storm impacts we are experiencing.
Fortunately, Rhode Island is a national leader in planning for the impacts of climate change and investing in resilient infrastructure. Since 2018, 35 cities and towns have participated in the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank’s Municipal Resilience Program, a workshop process to help municipalities develop prioritized lists of actionable resilience plans and projects. These intensive workshops are conducted by The Nature Conservancy of Rhode Island and bring municipal stakeholders together to discuss threats to local infrastructure. Once a community completes the process, it is eligible for action grants to implement resilient infrastructure solutions.
In conjunction with an evaluation committee consisting of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and several other state agencies, the Infrastructure Bank recently awarded $12 million in action grants to 20 projects in 19 communities across the state to increase resilience. Projects like making Newport’s King Park more resilient to coastal flooding through beach and natural vegetation restoration; restoring coastal dunes along Block Island’s Corn Neck Road; planting 238 trees in Bristol to mitigate stormwater runoff, removing impervious pavement in Woonsocket to create a new linear park, restoring a coastal bluff to prevent erosion at East Providence’s Crescent Park waterfront, and investing in stormwater solutions to reduce flooding in Coventry, Glocester, Hopkinton, Johnston, Lincoln, and South Kingstown. These investments were made possible by $16 million in funding approved by Rhode Island voters as part of the 2022 Green Bond.
Recognizing this success, Governor McKee’s state budget includes $10 million for future Municipal Resilience Program Action Grants as part of a proposed $50 million Green Economy bond question for November’s ballot.
These investments are an important start, but they only scratch the surface of the scale of investment needed.
For example, when the Infrastructure Bank issued its most recent RFP for Municipal Resilience Program Action Grants, 30 municipalities from across the state submitted 41 applications for a total of more than $52 million in infrastructure projects of all types, from stormwater management to coastal stabilization. This far exceeded the amount of available funding and clearly illustrates that sustainable and resilient infrastructure requires an equally sustainable and resilient funding source.
While homeowners, businesses, and our communities continue to experience the very real and expensive impacts of our new climate reality, and with a large and growing need to invest in resilient infrastructure, now is the time to work together collaboratively to develop a sustainable long-term financing framework to build a truly Resilient Rhody.
William J. Fazioli is the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank.