Deputy emergency official warns of flood risk, urges public to enroll in flood program

Edward Corner, deputy director of emergency communications preparedness and response, told the Richmond City Public Safety Standing Committee that El Niño conditions make flooding the principal hurricane threat and urged stronger city and household preparations.

Corner said the 2026 Atlantic season is expected to be below the long-term average, but cautioned that El Niño-driven changes to jet streams and sea-surface temperatures increase the likelihood of extreme rainfall and unusual storm tracks. “El Nino is normally associated with increased heat, increased drought, and heavy precipitation and flooding,” Corner said. He added that flooding accounts for the majority of direct hurricane fatalities and long-term infrastructure damage.

Why it matters: Corner warned that many Richmond households lack flood coverage and that federal recovery programs are limited. He said his office’s research showed only about 2% of city residents were enrolled in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), and reiterated that FEMA individual-assistance awards often provide only partial recovery. “The maximum individual assistance grants that FEMA can put out are somewhere in the range of about $43,600 for housing and then another $43,600 for other needs,” Corner said, adding that those amounts rarely restore households to pre-disaster conditions.

Corner outlined steps the Office of Emergency Management is taking: finalizing a comprehensive Emergency Operations Plan to present to council in late summer or early fall; maintaining an emergency operations center and a Multi-Agency Coordination (MAC) function for incident situational awareness; expanding continuity-of-operations (COOP) planning across departments; and embedding emergency-management liaisons within divisions. He said the city now uses WebEOC as its system-of-record for event documentation and after-action learning.

Communications and outreach: Corner highlighted Richmond Ready, the city’s opt-in alert system, saying it had 16,003 subscribers as of the morning of the committee meeting and that staff use that system alongside WEA/IPAWS, social media and partner networks to correct misinformation and issue frequent, real-time safety updates. He described efforts to reach hard-to-reach populations — including paper sign-ups and callbacks to fixed landlines — after committee members raised concerns about seniors and residents without internet or cell phones.

Committee members asked about infrastructure vulnerability and mitigation funding. Corner said the city is mapping critical assets to identify “danger nodes” to harden, and is pursuing hazard-mitigation grants for prioritized improvements. On COOPs, he said each department is preparing continuity plans that identify secondary and tertiary service locations and critical liabilities.

Next steps: Corner said the updated Emergency Operations Plan will include operational changes learned from recent events and that the office will continue neighborhood-level preparedness outreach and two-way communications via Richmond Ready. Committee members requested emphasis on flood-mitigation elements when the COOP and plan reach council review.