O.B.’s floodplain manager Lannie Smith recognized

O.B.’s floodplain manager Lannie Smith recognized

During its annual meeting earlier this month in Fairhope, Alabama, The Gulf of Mexico Climate and Resilience Community of Practice presented Lannie Smith, building official and floodplain manager with Orange Beach, Alabama, with the Spirit of Community Award in recognition of his exemplary job communicating climate challenges and why it is important to provide cities and regions with additional capacity to absorb adverse economic or environmental changes.
When he was working on implementing the 2012 International Building code for the city of Orange Beach, Smith worked with local government colleagues, the mayor and city councilmembers to develop new code requirements calling for more hurricane-resistant construction. The result was the Coastal Construction Code Supplement, which led to Orange Beach and 13 other communities building to the IBHS Fortified Home standard.
More recently, he led the efforts to start the first National Flood Insurance Program Community Rating System user group in Alabama, which increases the capacity of Alabama coastal communities to better manage flooding issues.
Smith has worked with partners across local, state and federal government, the private sector and academia to increase resilience in his community and in other communities across the Gulf. (By Stephen Deal, masgc.org)