​The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) selected Palm Beach County (PBC) to receive a $1.086 million grant from the FDEP Resilient Florida Program to assist six PBC municipalities with flood and sea level rise vulnerability assessments. The FDEP Resilient Florida Program provides grants to counties, municipalities and other entities to address the impacts of flooding and sea level rise in the state.

The vulnerability assessments will help each municipality address current flooding and prepare for future flooding by identifying the assets that may require adaptation efforts. For this project, the PBC Office of Resilience (OOR) will partner with the town of Cloud Lake, town of Glen Ridge, village of Golf, town of Haverhill, town of Hypoluxo and village of Palm Springs to identify or address the risks of flooding on critical and regionally significant assets owned or maintained by these municipalities. Such assets include schools, hospitals, airports, drinking water facilities and natural and historical resources such as parks, wetlands and historical sites. These municipalities already experience inland flooding during heavy rains, tropical storm events and sunny-day flooding in coastal areas due to king tides, which are expected to intensify in the coming years.

The FDEP Resilient Florida Program aims to have all Florida counties and cities complete a compliant flood and sea level rise vulnerability assessment by 2026 for inclusion in the Comprehensive Statewide Flood Vulnerability and Sea Level Rise Assessment. Once completed, the county will submit the municipal vulnerability assessments to the state for inclusion, which will allow the communities to be eligible for state funding to implement projects that address flood and sea level rise impacts in those areas.

PBC OOR will serve as the project's fiscal agent, project manager and grant manager. Each municipality will serve on the project steering committee, contribute data on their municipalities' critical assets and assist with organizing community engagement with their residents. The project builds upon and compliments PBC OOR's ongoing effort to conduct a Vulnerability Assessment in unincorporated Palm Beach County and western Glades municipalities.

“The PBC Office of Resilience is committed to ensuring that residents in both PBC municipalities and unincorporated areas are preparing for the impacts of flooding and sea level rise," said PBC OOR Director Megan Houston. “We are excited to partner with these six PBC municipalities to assess the impacts of current and future flooding and sea level rise on their critical assets so that they can prioritize their adaptation efforts, seek funding and implement adaptation measures to continue to protect the county."