Like many local governments on the coast, Beaufort faces hazards related to flooding, storm surge and sea level rise.
The town is holding its second meeting on a state-funded initiative its calling Resilient Beaufort at 5:30 p.m. March 3 via Zoom to work on a strategy to address these risks. The link for the meeting is available online. The first meeting was held online Jan. 27 for the town to provide updates on the progress of the long-term effort.
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Beaufort, along with about two dozen other communities in the 20 Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, counties were awarded grants last year through the North Carolina Resilient Coastal Communities Program. Led by the state Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management, the program provides funding for local governments to help overcome barriers in coastal resilience and adaptation planning, boost local government capacity, and support a proactive, sustainable, and equitable approach to coastal resilience planning and project implementation, according to the website.
The initiative is broken up into four phases: Phase 1 is community engagement and risk and vulnerability assessment; Phase 2 is planning, project identification and prioritization; Phase 3 is engineering and design; and Phase 4 is implementation.
Funding for the first two phases was announced in March 2021. Once the first two phases are complete, the local governments will be able to apply for grant funding to complete Phases 3 and 4.
To learn more about the Resilient Beaufort initiative, including materials and a recording of the first public meeting on risk assessment, visit the program webpage.
The state legislature and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation fund the resilience program.
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