Restaurants in areas prone to hurricanes, tornedos and other extreme weather events could suffer less damage and downtime in the future as the result of a new $1 billion White House initiative aimed at countering Mother Nature’s wrath.
Under a plan unveiled Monday by President Biden in anticipation of a particularly bad weather season, vulnerable communities will be provided the funding to shore up their defenses and infrastructure against climate-related natural disasters. The allocation is double what was channeled to jurisdictions and groups a year ago, and is intended to shift local governments’ focus to defending themselves against disastrous conditions instead of scrambling afterward to provide aid.
Part of the money will also go toward what the White House described as “a new NASA mission concept” for predicting natural disasters more accurately and increasing climatologists’ understanding of how problematic weather arises.
The White House announcement of the $1 billion allocation follows the release last week of a long-term weather outlook from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). About 60% of the weather forecasters contributing to the report said they expect more major storms to hit the U.S. through the rest of this year than the record count recorded last year.
Another 30% said they expect record number of hurricanes, tornedos and other storms to be matched but not broken, and only 10% said they expect better conditions.
Last year, the U.S. was rocked by 22 weather and climate-related disasters, each of which did about $1 billion in damage.
The White House noted that 2021 is already off to a bad start, citing the severe winter storms that hit Texas and other areas early in the year.
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