As extreme weather continues to hit the United States from coast to coast, Rebuild by Design is launching the Atlas of Accountability, a new mapping tool designed to help communities and policymakers understand their localized exposure to extreme weather disasters and the benefits of investments in resilient infrastructure that can make communities safer.

Such experience across the political spectrum and American geography emphasizes the urgency of bipartisan cooperation and the need to unite across the urban-rural divide. 

Rebuild by Design’s Atlas of Accountability is an interactive map that allows users to identify past federal disaster declarations and recovery funding for climate-driven events county-by-county, and congressional representatives district-by-district. In the wake of a disaster, recovery funding is essential for helping communities get critical infrastructure running again and preparing for future events. The National Association of Building Sciences found that $1 invested pre-disaster can save up to $11 of taxpayer money after a storm.

The Atlas of Accountability looks at where two major pools of funding, totaling $106.4 billion, have been allocated after extreme events:

• To address immediate public sector and infrastructure recovery, over $62.6 billion has moved to local governments through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation program. 
• $43.8 billion of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant-DR funding went to supporting post-disaster investments. 

Other data resources in the analysis include: allocations of FEMA funding (Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation) by county; total amounts of funding to states after disasters (FEMA and HUD); and a link to detailed and downloadable 2021 state data that shows each state’s social vulnerability and energy reliability, as well as wastewater discharge and superfunds sites.

You can access the full report here.