From Hoboken to Houston, cities are being forced to rethink how they protect their communities, turning common challenges into chances to reimagine what's possible.
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00:00On the surface, this park in Hoboken looks like your average urban oasis, but just below these benches and foliage lies the future of storm management.
00:10It was one of the first projects that we built coming out after the hurricane of Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy, and it was really the city's proof of concept on absorbing rainwater, building infrastructure, so this is absorbing water for the city and keeping it off the streets.
00:26This is just one of several resiliency parks across Hoboken. Together, they can hold nearly 2 million gallons of stormwater.
00:35It really goes back to having a comprehensive water management strategy for this city, so looking at our different flood risk profiles, you have coastal storm surge, you have heavy precipitation.
00:45The city's green-blue infrastructure features rain gardens, permeable pavement, and elevated walkways, so water seeps in instead of flooding out.
00:53The result? Fewer backups and faster recovery.
00:57More than 75% of our communities are in the floodplain, so we have a great amount of risk reduction we need to do.
01:02The city can manage more than 88% of rain events, and if we do have a rain event that disrupts our city's systems, we're really dry and back-functioning within one tide cycle.
01:13Now, other cities are following Hoboken's lead. In Austin, parks and green roofs help cool the city and cut emissions.
01:20Houston, which has endured multiple devastating storms in the last decade, is investing in detention basins and wetlands.
01:28And in Charleston, planners are elevating roads and restoring marshes to combat rising seas.
01:34Ultimately, cities are turning common challenges into a chance to reimagine what's possible.
01:39We have infrastructure that's aging, so we have opportunity to build and layer on other projects to produce a more resilient outcome.
01:47For AccuWeather, I'm Allie Reed.