Risk mitigation: Summit sets sights on boosting regional resiliency

Tampa Bay’s growing vulnerability to climate change-driven natural disasters has been well documented. The potential for catastrophic storm surge made worse by sea-level rise routinely lands the region on lists of the world’s most at-risk metro areas.

Many of us have seen the simulations of what a direct hit from a major hurricane would do to Bradenton, Clearwater, St. Petersburg, Tampa and all the other coastal towns and cities that surround the bay — and it’s not pretty. Nearly five years ago, in an expose headlined, “Tampa Bay’s Coming Storm,” The Washington Post cited “gambler’s luck” as the only reason we haven’t had to take a page from Noah’s playbook and build arks, and it accused local and state leaders of not doing enough to prepare for such a doomsday scenario.