The authors of this opinion piece are Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo; Jackie Newton, chairwoman, Pender County; Zeb Smathers, Canton mayor; and John Cummings, vice chairman, Robeson County.

Flooding upends entire communities. We know this from our experiences from recent hurricanes and tropical storms, which caused widespread damage and triggered years-long recoveries.
 
But an often-overlooked impact is how flooding affects transportation. While flooding overwhelms businesses, hospitals, and homes, it also wipes out roads and bridges that link all these critical community assets.
 
In the past, the state legislature has dedicated funding for recovering from such impacts, with $15 million in transportation specific flood resilience grants in 2021. Those funds supported rural, suburban, and urban communities as far west as Transylvania County and as far east as Brunswick County.
 
With the state budget becoming law last month, the North Carolina state legislature is building on this momentum. The state dedicated millions more for transportation resilience, crucially protecting roads and bridges from the impact of flooding.
 
Under the leadership of the North Carolina General Assembly — and with the support of Governor Roy Cooper — North Carolina will be better prepared for the flooding of tomorrow. We thank the American Flood Coalition for bringing together and elevating local voices on these issues across our great state.
 
Specifically, the funding will make available $30 million that can be used to boost resilience in transportation and protect communities on the front lines of flooding.
 
Such funds can be used to upgrade bridges and culverts to better withstand heavier rainfall.  Using funds from the 2021 budget, for example, the town of Boiling Spring Lakes paved and improved drainage along a key evacuation route.
 
An additional benefit of this year’s funding is that the money can be used for matching grants. That means that when federal funding is available, smaller, rural communities can use these grant funds to match it, giving them more opportunities to access such funding.
 
The need for transportation resilience is uniform across the state. Representing both urban or rural, cities or farmland, inland or coastal, we collectively understand the destructive, wide-ranging nature of flooding and why it’s so important to work together to address these risks.
 
We also know that when flooding strikes, it ignores jurisdictional and partisan boundaries. That’s why we’re excited that this new funding will also be available to regional governmental entities who can tackle flooding that occurs across city and county lines.
 
The new budget complements previous resilience initiatives in North Carolina — not just funding for transportation resilience but also the vision the state is undertaking through its Flood Resilience Blueprint. While the Blueprint casts a long-term vision for the state’s flood resilience, this new investment will address immediate needs in the interim.
 
With this money, communities across North Carolina will build and upgrade transportation infrastructure with resilience in mind — and importantly, be better prepared when the next disaster strikes. As we continue to rebuild and prepare for the next storm, we’re committed to being a bipartisan voice for communities across the state facing flood risk.