Wilmington seeks public input as resilience planning begins to address flooding, heat, storms

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — As our temperatures dip into the 30s, we have a peek into how Wilmington is showing its resiliency in the face of extreme weather.

The city of Wilmington held a public information session as part of the North Carolina Resilient Coastal Communities program.

The program aims to help communities set goals, identify and design projects that can help fix issues, such as excessive flooding, loss of tree canopy, and excessive heat.

Wednesday’s event gave residents the opportunity to share where they’ve seen these types of issues in the city.

Jennifer Fickler is a coastal resilience specialist with the Division of Coastal Management.

She said projects completed through this program can help make a city like Wilmington come back from extreme weather more quickly.

“It’s sets them up for resiliency, so that they can recover faster from different events that might happen like a hurricane or something like that,” Fickler said. “It can help their residents so they’re not facing some of these coastal hazards at such an extreme rate or extreme magnitude.”

The information session is part of phase 1, while the next phase is expected to end in September, with a resiliency plan.

The plan will include suggested projects, after which the Wilmington City Council can apply for grants to cover the costs.

New Hanover County is also part of the program and will hold it’s own information session on Thursday night at Wilmington Christian Academy from 5-7 pm.