Brody featured in FEMA video touting flood prevention tips

A [video] (http://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/videos/91096) touting how communities can avoid flood losses, available on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website, features Sam Brody, professor of urban planning at Texas A&M.

Raising structures above base flood elevation, defined as an area with a one percent annual chance of flooding, and protecting open spaces in floodplains are the two most important things communities can do to prevent flood damage, said Brody in the video.

Brody added that municipalities participating in FEMA’s Community Rating System, a voluntary program that encourages community floodplain management activities that exceed FEMA’s flood insurance program standards, dramatically reduce their flood damage.

“All signals point to the fact that the CRS program makes a big difference,” he said.

Brody, who has a joint appointment to the [Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning] (http://laup.arch.tamu.edu/) at the Texas A&M University College of Architecture and the Department of Marine Sciences at Texas A&M-Galveston, is holder of the George P. Mitchell ’40 Chair in Sustainable Coasts and directs the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center’s [Environmental Planning and Sustainability Research Unit] (http://research-legacy.arch.tamu.edu/epsru/) and the [Center for Texas Beaches and Shores] (http://www.tamug.edu/CTBS/) .