 Hello, everyone, and welcome to Understanding Climate Change. You know, this is the first of several past forward sessions on sustainability and climate action presented in partnership with the National Park Service. And this is actually the second in the series of the past forward pre-conference webinars. My name is Lindsay Wallace. I'm the director of strategic projects and design services at Main Street America. I'm also a board member of the National Preservation Partners Network. Along with Jim Lindberg, the senior policy director at the National Trust, I co-chair a national working group on sustainability and climate action, which I'll share more about momentarily. But before we get into the content, a few housekeeping items. This session is being recorded and it will be available in the forum webinar library following the events, most likely tomorrow. A follow-up information and resources that you see throughout this event today, including how to access the recording, will be sent to the email address you use to register for this workshop. Close captioning is enabled and available through your control bar at the bottom of the screen. I'm sure many of you have used that before, but that is available for this. For Q&A, please use the Q&A function to submit questions directly to the speakers. You can do that at any point of the presentation and then answered questions will be visible to everybody. And you can obviously feel free to use the chat to ask questions to an agent dialogue. We certainly welcome that love to see it. The last piece of course is to please abide by the conference code of conduct and we'll put a link in the chat to that code. With that, I just want to say we're thrilled to see so many of you here today. Thank you for joining. We're really excited to be able to present this content to you today. And we're here today because of a partnership. So in 2020, the National Trust for Reserve Preservation and the National Preservation Partners Network formalized the partnership to really dig into the most pressing issues facing the preservation field. This partnership we called it the Preservation Priorities Task Force. Many of you are probably familiar with this. We sent the last year focused on four specific areas of work, affordable housing and density, diversity, inclusion and racial justice, preservation trades and workforce development and sustainability and climate action. As I mentioned, I serve as the co-chair of the sustainability and climate action working group along with Jim Lindberg, senior policy director of the trust to hear more from later in the session. So this task force or the task force, the Preservation Priorities Task Force includes four working groups. So one for each issue that we described, plus overall steering committee and a communication subcommittee. And to date, more than 50 preservation practitioners from across the country have engaged in these in these working groups. And that represents about 23 states and dozens of organizations. So it's a real national effort. And just a note on these four areas of work, right? These are not intended to be siloed. We wanted focused work on each of these very pressing issues. But as a part of this overall work, we're really looking at how to recognize overlap for a more comprehensive approach to all of this work, specifically with diversity, inclusion and racial justice. This certainly isn't a siloed issue. It's central to all the work that we do and certainly central to the work of the Preservation Priorities Task Force. And especially true with sustainability and climate action where we know that communities of color and under under resource communities are disproportionately affected by the effects of climate change. It's a part of our role as cultural resource practitioners and preservation is to recognize that and to combat that reality with all the tools in our toolbox. And so through this two year project to this Preservation Priorities Task Force will support this work by providing statewide local organizations and resources and grants to tackle these issues. Last week we were thrilled to release issue briefs on each of these topics, which is available at preservationpriorities.org, which we'll put it in the chat. So I'm hoping that many of you have seen these issue briefs but just to give you a little more background there they're not intended as comprehensive studies. They're really designed to build mutual understanding to spark conversation and to inspire action. You know, we encourage preservation organizations and advocates to use the briefs in any number of ways that they would be useful to you guides for discussions with community leaders and stakeholders background for outreach to potential partners. And of course support materials for fundraising efforts and more. But most importantly these issue briefs are meant are meant to provide a foundation for the next phase of this this initiative, this task force, which is to develop practical tools for use by preservation organization stakeholders and partners across the country. So what we're going to be doing over the next year these working groups are going to be developing new resources such as two messaging and talking points, policy examples case studies one pagers tips sheets and webinars. And we can do this alone we invite you to participate in this work we are looking to have as many. Oh, yes, thanks Gail. I'll slow down, slow down the conversation. So we invite you to participate in this work, you know we want as many voices elevated and included in this work as possible, and Jim has been outlined more detail on how to get involved at the end of the program today. In addition to this pre conference session we have several climate focus sessions that pass forward which you'll see, as well as three post conference deep dive webinars on topics in a role to climate action, including one focus specifically on climate migration and racial justice. This session will explore climate change one on one focusing on mitigation and adaptation. And we're thrilled to have national experts here today to walk us through what role cultural resource professionals can play in this important work, which becomes more and more important every day. We're designed to give everyone a grounding in the terminology and issues that we can all be more effective in our work, no fluency in a common vocabulary about climate change is especially important as we try to expand the umbrella and to work with more advocates from other fields. So with that, I'd like to extend the huge thanks to our partners as a National Park Service for being here today. And I'd like to introduce you to Brian, Brian Goken, who's the chief of technical preservation services at the National Park Service so the few words to share. Brian I'll hand it over to you. Thank you Lindsay. The National Park Service is pleased to partner with the National Trust and the partners on today's webinar, and on such a critical and timely subject, not only for the nation's national parks but for the National Historic Preservation Program generally. The effects of climate change can be quite sudden and destructive with forces that are ready today place our historic resources at great risk. And they can also be minimal or more gradual with the impacts unknown or not anticipated to affect historic resources until sometime in the future. Climate change is a particular and continuing challenge to us in historic preservation, as we look for ways to mitigate its effects and make our historic buildings more sustainable and resilient to its impacts. This will require us to not only be proactive and creative in our climate change planning and risk assessment, but in some instances be willing to accept adaptation treatments and other outcomes that might not otherwise be accepted in other contexts. We have developed a comprehensive climate change response strategy in 2010 for the national park system, focused on science adaptation mitigation and communication measures. And we continue to build off the strategy to help guide us as we address what are considerable challenges for many of our park natural and cultural resources. There is regular research and data collection and the development of new tools for climate change projection scenario planning vulnerability assessment and adaptation strategies for our parks and park resources. We hope that these efforts not only help ensure the continued preservation and protection of our cultural resources for generations to come. But we also hope that these efforts will have a quick ability more broadly in the preservation field. And one of the overall response strategy is a plan developed in 2016 to specifically address the impacts of climate change on cultural resources. However, the National Park Service recognizes that in many instances, and it's true of our field as well, our climate change efforts to understand natural resource challenges has advanced further than our understanding of cultural resource adaptation needs and our work in this area must continue. In our partnership programs, the National Park Service has and continues to develop guidance and technical preservation information related to sustainability and climate change adaptation to assist our partners in the national preservation program as well as the general public. Most recently, we issued an illustrated and revised version in June of the guidelines on flood adaptation for rehabilitating historic buildings. And we have funded research and provided grants and other financial assistance to support and further these efforts as well. The reference materials and handouts being provided as part of the webinar include links to these and other guidance and information issued by the National Park Service and others related to sustainability, climate change and resilience to natural hazards. And we hope you find the presentations and this additional information helpful and informative. On behalf of the National Park Service. Thank you for attending today's webinar and for your work in support of the National Preservation Program and the preservation of the nation's cultural heritage. Thank you Lindsay. Thank you so much Brian, we are so grateful to be partnering with you on today's program. Well, let's get into it. I'd like to introduce our first speaker Carl Alasante. Many of you are familiar with him. He is a hero in this sphere. We're really glad he's, he's able to be a part of this. He is currently out of many different roles, serving as a principal emeritus at Quinn Evans and a senior fellow for architecture 2030. So without further ado, here's Carl. Hi everyone. It's a real delight for me to be here with you today to talk about this important topic of bringing historic preservation and climate change together. I'd like to thank the National Trust for Historic Preservation for conducting these pre-conference workshops and really to prepare people for the past four conference that's coming up. And I'd also like to thank the National Park Service for contributing so much to the development of this program. I'd also like to thank the Park Service for their years of leadership on developing sustainability, particularly in the historic preservation space. And lastly, I'd like to thank Jim Lindberg, Lindsay Wallace and Rhonda Sikavich for all the work that they've done to really help prepare this program. If you're participating in this, chances are that you're already interested in trying to understand how climate change and historic preservation intersect. And we're going to talk about it today really in two modes. Most of my comments will be devoted to what is termed mitigation, really dealing with climate change itself, curtailing with the causes of climate change. And then later on in the program we'll switch to the adaptation considerations, really contending with the consequences of climate change. I'm going to be talking about the building sector by and large, and mitigation in the building sector really is about decarbonization. That is the elimination of greenhouse gases that are caused by the building sector. And then the National Park Service will follow with their comments on adaptation. I think it's only fair to begin with a few comments about myself and my perspectives and to give you a little bit of an idea about my predispositions in talking about this topic. I would certainly mostly be referred to as a historic preservation architect. I like to think of myself more broadly as an existing building reuse specialist. I've certainly had a privileged career working on some of the most beloved buildings and some of the most beloved places in the nation. Early on I became an advocate for the inherent sustainability of historic preservation and of the importance of the caretaking of the existing building stock. I was in architecture school in New York City in the turbulent 1960s. During that period there was great dismay, even outrage over the demolition of Pennsylvania Station, one of the landmarks of the city that was destroyed to make way for, quote, progress, end quote. Historic preservation in my world in the 1960s was a movement. Also at that time there was dismay, even outrage, over the environmental harm that was being caused by our way of life. Rachel Carson's wonderful book, Silent Spring, brought to the public consciousness the birdless spring times that she was experiencing because of the use of DDT. We also had the riveting image of the burning of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland to symbolize just how far this environmental harm was going. And finally at that time there was also dismay, even outrage, over how much our cities were being destroyed in the name of progress. There's an image here of the cross Manhattan arterial that was proposed by Robert Moses and made the huge mistake of actually running this freeway through Jane Jacobs neighborhood and kind of the rest is history. So from early in my career I became predisposed to the importance of stewardship and just its vitality and its ethical dimensions. By attending this session, chances are you're already very aware of the importance of heritage and the value it has on our culture. Chances are you're also concerned about the lack of connection between culture and heritage and the understanding of the crucial issues that we're facing today. I know about built heritage and that's what I'll address now. Built heritage is only one element in a broader fabric of heritage considerations. Icomos, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, another child of the 60s, categorizes heritage into these six categories. Again, I will talk about built heritage. There are three qualities of built heritage that are particularly relevant to this discussion about climate change. First is understanding that built heritage is foundational, it's fundamental, it's essential, it's irreplaceable and more. How would we understand human history without our knowledge of built heritage? Second, built heritage is living heritage. We experience built heritage today, built heritage that may have been constructed hundreds, even thousands of years ago. The best way to appreciate, to understand, to interpret built heritage is to use it, is to occupy it, is to experience it. From the climate change perspective, we must remember that built heritage is also part of the problem. Most heritage buildings actually cause carbon pollution and that makes it a unique aspect of heritage with special challenges for heritage conservation. And lastly, built heritage is threatened by climate change. In fact, not a week goes by today without serious damage and even loss of built heritage as a consequence of climate change. So as stewards of built heritage, our job of protecting built heritage in this era of climate change is inseparable from the challenge of decarbonizing the built environment, eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. Decarbonizing buildings is the rubric for the building sector in climate mitigation. We must embrace decarbonization. Of course, the conversation about climate change was revolutionized in Paris in 2015 with the adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Those goals and actions that were established in Paris are in the process today of being substantially rewritten as the urgency of a more rapidly changing climate becomes obvious every day. The commitment to 1.5 degrees Celsius maximum global warming over two degrees that was established in Paris. The thought that 2040 is the goal for decarbonization, not 2050 is the conversation today. There's great urgency in ramping up climate action. Of course, the building sector played an important role in discussions in Paris in 2015. Particularly, Ed Mazaria is credited with having laid out a roadmap to zero emissions for the building sector that is being followed to this day. Conceptually, the building sector roadmap to zero emissions is quite simple. There are three imperatives. First, the elimination of greenhouse gases from how we occupy and operate buildings. In other words, operational carbon. Second, eliminating greenhouse gases from how we make and renew buildings embodied carbon. And lastly, whatever energy needs buildings have must be met with non polluting renewable energy. Before we dive into some numbers, I want to sound a cautionary note. Mark Twain told us of the three types of lies. There are lies, damned lies and statistics. Both of these pie charts present the same data. On the left, the greenhouse gas emissions are sorted by source. In other words, direct only emissions. On the right, greenhouse gas emissions are sorted by demand, including both direct and indirect emissions. You need to understand what your goals are in sorting data. The greenhouse gas emissions data presented here is that used by the UN environmental program and also the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change. These statistics sort greenhouse gas emissions by demand. Globally, the building sector is responsible for 39% of greenhouse gas emissions. It's about the same in the US. In many places, this number will vary tremendously. For example, in the District of Columbia metro area where I live, 70% of greenhouse gas emissions are the result of the building sector. Operational emissions are categorized into direct and indirect words that you've heard before, and then residential and non residential building types. So each market sector then understands its responsibility to address greenhouse gas emissions. And then lastly, the embodied emissions, the construction industry emissions, are also noted. It's rather difficult to understand the emissions from buildings. It's a lot easier with cars. With cars, it's a tailpipe to look at. You can smell their emissions and in cold weather, you can even see their emissions. With buildings, emissions are mostly from consuming non renewable energy. Operational emissions are most like cars. Direct operational emissions are emitted on site at the building, mostly from heating and cooling. That's by far the greatest amount from water heating. In both of those cases, oftentimes those are generated with fossil fuels as is cooking. And then of course, there's lighting and equipment appliances that architects called plug loads. Indirect operational emissions are nearly all from generating power off site by using fossil fuels. Buildings consume 70% of the electricity generated in this country. Still today, 65% of electricity in the United States is still generated from burning fossil fuels. Embodied emissions can be even harder to understand. They essentially fall into two categories, the production stage and then the construction stage. In the production stage, it's the industry that supports making the materials that are used in building, the raw material extraction and processing, the actual manufacturing and fabrication processes themselves, and of course, an enormous amount of transportation that's involved. In the construction stage, there's onsite installation and assembly of course, and then also a tremendous amount of transportation that's involved just moving materials about. Concrete, steel, aluminum and glass are an enormous part of the industrial footprint in this country and around the world. Both operational emissions and embodied emissions matter. Solving them is essential. To mitigate climate change and to decarbonize, we must address both. Typically, with conventional building practices, embodied carbon is roughly equal to 20 years of operational carbon. What historic preservationists understand is that the key to understanding these emissions is operationalizing building life cycles. Let me explain. Building life cycles are understood first and foremost through the life cycle assessment oftentimes referred to as LCA process. LCA tracks building resource use, costs and environmental impacts over time. LCA is a highly technical, highly formalized field. Chances are, examples of LCA thinking that you're familiar with are on the material scale. Paper or plastic, aren't you going to recycle that can? Of course, building conservators and historic preservation architects appreciate life cycles at another scale, the assembly scale. The classic is discussions about bad historic windows and good new modern windows which use insulated glazing units illustrated here. An IGU, as they're called, is actually an assembly of multiple materials with very different life cycles. The failure of the weakest link, in this case the sealants, renders the entire assembly no longer useful or operational. Both material and assembly scope LCA is essential in the climate era. Ultimately, climate mitigation demands that we take life cycle to its ultimate whole building scope. Buildings are complex assemblages of many, many materials and systems each with its own life cycle. If anyone understands this, it's historic preservation architects who are keeping what's of value in buildings that are hundreds of years old and replacing only what's absolutely necessary when it's usable service life comes to an end. Stewart Brand, the creator of the whole earth catalog, another 60s influence, created this system for categorizing the various elements in whole building life cycle. So let's look at how important life cycle thinking is to both the stewardship of buildings and also climate mitigation. I'm going to start with a real world case study for a project from Quinn Evans, a building that only the most devoted historic preservationists would see value in. But even a burned out shell like 71 Garfield Street does have value. There's an opportunity here to bring a building back to life. This is our responsibility above all others. We in the historic preservation field, we who value heritage and value stewardship must be the evangelists for the value of heritage buildings and all buildings. 71 Garfield Street is also affordable housing. It's also the story of the rebirth of Detroit and the history of Detroit's vibrant Harlem Renaissance era. 71 Garfield Street is also a green building, a near net zero building with PBs on the roof and solar hot water and a ground exchange heating and cooling system. Even here in a burned out shell like 71 Garfield Street, a climate appropriate response is possible. Our understanding of building life cycles is essential to climate mitigation. Let me dive all the way into building reuse as climate mitigation. Here is another example from Quinn Evans, another building from Detroit, another abandoned building that only a historic preservation architect could love. A mid-century office converted to housing. The process that we undertook to give new life to this abandoned office building and converted to housing is quite straightforward. Of course, we kept the structure of the building and the floor plates. We upgraded the exterior envelope, the curtain wall in this case with glass and spandrel panels. And then of course we completely reconfigured the interior to go from office to housing with all new heating, ventilating, air conditioning systems, lighting. We added kitchens and bathrooms, etc. The entire interior is new. To understand the importance of a project like this from a climate mitigation standpoint, first let's look at embodied emissions. Had this been a new building, about 60% of the embodied emissions would have been in the creation of the building structure. About 28% would have been for creating the spaces for the apartments themselves, and only about 12% for the enclosure, the skin of the building, the curtain wall. By keeping the existing building, we have completely avoided the need to create the new structure. We've avoided the largest portion of the embodied carbon emissions from a project like this. So let's look at a project like this comparing renovation and replacement scenarios. Let's take a holistic approach to the emissions, both operational greenhouse gas emissions and embodied greenhouse gas emissions. Of course the baseline are the current operational emissions of the existing building. Let's begin by looking at a renovation scenario. Across the bottom of the chart, the two gray bands indicate the embodied emissions for the skin and interior alterations. On top of that, the yellow triangle indicates the operating emissions improved to about 60% below what we saw in the baseline. That's current code. You can see that in eight years, the project begins to experience net carbon reduction. A zero net energy project, by the way, would have no yellow triangle at all. Let's compare with a replacement building scenario. You can see that the large gray bar across the middle has been added for the embodied emissions from the structure. You can also see that the yellow triangle following the same slope, the same code mandated 60% reduced emissions, follows on top of that. Now it's 20 years before any net carbon benefit is realized from the replacement scenario. If you take away nothing else from this presentation, please take away the lessons from this slide. The renovation over replacement scenario that we looked at is an indication of building reuse versus new building construction writ large. This is the essential factor in climate mitigation, the essential benefit of historic preservation and building reuse in meeting Paris targets. We must learn to speak the language of avoided carbon. We must learn to advocate for monetizing avoided carbon in the policy structure of the carbon economy. Did everyone get that? The importance of avoided carbon as an essential tool in the toolbox for building sector climate mitigation is magnified exponentially when the future of modern era buildings is considered. In the current building stock, fully one half of all buildings are modern era structures reaching a crucial age. Reaching an age when major reinvestment is necessary to maintain them as viable buildings. We in the historic preservation field appreciate what a challenge modern era buildings are, how different they are. I'm going to a lot of effort to underscore this point because the green building world has officially declared mid-century buildings useless of no value ready for the scrap heap. And this is despite more than a decade of lead platinum rehabilitation projects of mid-century buildings. That mid-century unmodern study has contributed to the now accepted notion that tearing down 50 story buildings to make way for 100 story buildings is smart growth and climate smart growth. This plan shown here for the redevelopment around Grand Central Terminal in New York City is real, directly facilitated by the findings of no value in the mid-century unmodern study. This thinking has resulted in the demolition of 270 Park Avenue, a 50 year old building, 53 stories tall, torn down to make way for 90 story buildings. In my view it is the Penn Station of modern era buildings. It was the crowning achievement of Nathalie Dubois, the only female design principal at Skidmoreines and Merrill in the 60s. And the carbon wasted by throwing this building into the trash pile makes it antithetical to climate goals. There are many alternative treatments possible for modern era buildings, buildings like 270 Park Avenue. What will we prioritize? On the left we see Lever House, where the appearance of the building was prioritized. Nothing in the photo that you see there is original material, it's just made to look like original material. In the center, the Celebrazi building in Cleveland, the original material was kept over clad with a secondary glass facade to create a higher performance facade. And on the right the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt building in Portland, Oregon is a recurtain walled building like the one that I showed you earlier, where climate mitigation, where environmental performance guided the design of the new facade. What will we prioritize? So the core message of this presentation is that we can be true to our values as historic preservationists while making an essential contribution to climate mitigation. Of course, new green buildings like the Bullet Center shown on the left are the poster children of climate appropriate design. But historic projects, projects like the Wayne Aspenall Federal Building shown here are also capable of producing net zero energy results through historic preservation. In the era of climate change, the greenest building still is one that is already built. A decade ago, the National Trust for Historic Preservation through the work of the Preservation Green Lab did the work to demonstrate that existing buildings and the reuse of existing buildings was an environmentally beneficial path. It was a method of green building, often more beneficial than its new building alternatives. So there is work to be done today to bring heritage conservation, historic preservation, and building reuse front and center into climate mitigation conversation. In 2019, IKAMOS produced the future of our pasts. It was a beginning. This year, the Climate Heritage Network is going to take to COP26 this message. You in your home community, you through your engagement with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, you with your engagement with other heritage conservation groups, you must become advocates for this important message. And I'll close with one final message from the 60s. In 1961, when John F. Kennedy took the oath of office, he was confronted with an hour of maximum danger, the threat of nuclear holocaust. And he wasn't just whistling Dixie in fewer than two years, the Cuban Missile Crisis took place, bringing the world closer to nuclear exchange than ever before or since. He said these words, in the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom and its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility. I welcome it. Our generation has been granted the role of resolving the climate crisis. We must not shrink from this responsibility, but welcome it. And now we'll turn it over to Jenny Parker, the National Park Service, to transition the conversation to adaptation. Jenny is with the National Park Service Technical Preservation Services, which administers the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives programs. She's also a co-author of Guidelines on Flood Adaptation for Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings. Jenny. Now we will move the conversation from mitigation, energy efficiency, and sustainability to one of adaptation. I'm Jenny Parker, and I will provide an overview of adaptation as a treatment for historic buildings. Following me, Erin Minigan of the Preservation Society of Charleston, South Carolina, will describe how her city has responded to increased flooding and predictions of sea level rise. And finally, Jennifer Wellock with the Department of the Interior will show several case studies of historic structures that are or have been threatened by different natural disasters. Historic and existing buildings have a role to play in mitigating the effects of climate change, as Carl just described. But the climate is already changing, and in this segment of today's program we will discuss how historic buildings are faring in these changing environments and what can be done to make these structures more resilient to these changes. When we think of a changing climate, we often think of the dramatic disaster type events like those pictured here, a wildfire encroaching on a historic Pueblo, or a historic building inundated by a flood, and in this case with floodwaters topped with ice and snow. Climate change also encompasses more subtle and gradual shifts that can also affect the preservation of historic resources. Things like a change in the intensity of rainfall, the number of free stall cycles, a shift to more or less humidity, alteration of the water table, and the arrival of new pests. There are multiple hazards and factors that need to be considered for any given property, and climate change by definition means that we may not be able to solely rely on traditional maintenance routines or historical data to inform future preservation efforts. In this presentation and the ones to follow, we will be focused primarily on historic buildings, rather than large or cultural landscapes, archaeological sites, or other types of historic resources. This is not because there is no effect to these other resource types, but for the purposes of today's presentation and this audience, this is the property type that the majority of you are focused on. If we do nothing to prepare our historic buildings for their new environments, then we risk losing what we have managed to save. All losses may not be as dramatic and sudden as the destruction pictured here. In this case, Superstorm Sandy destroyed the left side of this house in a coastal community of New Jersey, while the roof remains amazingly intact. Other damage and destruction from climate change may occur more gradually, but in either case, historic buildings are at increased risk and environmental stress. Even the most well-built and designed of our historic resources may not have been designed to withstand these new stresses. As frightening and intimidating as damage pictures like this can be, there are treatments that can be implemented to improve the chances of historic buildings being able to survive and withstand their changing environments. The first steps towards improving the resiliency of historic buildings should be very familiar to preservationists. A building that is maintained in good condition, at least if the building envelope is well maintained, has a better chance of surviving both the dramatic storm events and the more gradual and incremental changes. Monitoring the conditions of both the building and the immediate site can alert property owners or managers to issues that need attention before they become serious problems. Monitoring can also provide key clues toward proper interventions that will address such problems. And last but not least, documenting the historic and existing conditions of a property will provide not only records that can assist with monitoring changing conditions, but also provide a record of features, finishes, and spaces that may need to be replicated in the future if the property is damaged or allowed to severely deteriorate. In Norfolk, Virginia, the Commonwealth Preservation Group has begun a monitoring program to help better identify the source of new deterioration issues and find the appropriate intervention. The example shown here shows a deteriorated brick wall that has been repointed with appropriate materials and methods only 10 years before this photo was taken. Using data collection probes in the walls and overlaying data collected with available water and soils data, the professionals have been able to better pinpoint new sources of water infiltration and provide a range of potential solutions. While it's not necessary for all maintenance and monitoring programs to be this sophisticated, this example shows that relying on some of our tried and true methods while infusing some additional climate factors and weather information can help direct practitioners toward targeted solutions that are more likely to be consistent with the historic building. Once the foundation to proper care and treatment of historic buildings has been built with good maintenance, monitoring, and documentation, then it may be necessary to implement other alterations to adapt the building to better respond to the threats. As preservationists, we naturally shy away from making significant changes, but in some circumstances climate change threats are so dire that the continued existence of the resource is at stake. Adaptive treatments in response to climate impacts will necessarily have to be scaled to the relative risk to the individual resource. So a building at risk primarily from slow incremental impacts may not warrant a significant and intervention as those with a more immediate and severe risk. In any case, the impacts to the resources historic character should always be minimized to the greatest extent possible. As you work in the world of climate change, it's important to note that commonly used terms may have different meanings to different groups. In the Park Service, we work closely alongside colleagues from natural resources disciplines like biologists. When they talk about adaptation to climate change, they are generally talking about the second definition shown on the screen. According to Miriam Webster, adaptation can refer to an evolutionary process of change that occurs within a plant or animal. However, when cultural resource professionals use this term, we're more generally referring to the third part of the definition, going through a process to change a building in order to make it better fit in and respond to a new environment. Adaptation work can be implemented on different scales from a large landscape plan to a single lot within a historic district. Truthfully, in most locations, there will be different levels of intervention happening at several scales. So if you are working on an individual plot within a historic district, like the home pictured at right, it is important to avoid working in isolation. There may be efforts happening on a regional, city-wide or neighborhood scale that can affect conditions on a specific site. At whatever scale you are working, the basic process for adaptation is the same. Many of the steps in the adaptation framework should feel familiar to preservationists. The steps are similar to what happens on any rehabilitation or restoration project. The difference for climate change will be the addition of more factors to consider and most likely a more limited choice in terms of adaptation treatments that will adequately address the risk. The steps listed here are not necessarily listed in the order that they will be completed. It's not strictly a linear process in which identification leads to monitoring and so on. That's true for some of the items on this list, but several could be done simultaneously or in a different order. However, these steps should be completed for any adaptation project involving a historic building. For the remainder of my presentation, I'll walk you through each of these steps and provide more information about what is involved. Before you figure out how to adapt to property, you have to know which risk factors need to be considered. A good place to get started on some of this is your local hazard mitigation plan. These plans have been completed for most communities because their existence is a prerequisite to receiving federal funds in the event of a federally declared disaster. These plans should identify the major natural disaster risks for a community. Some of the more subtle climate change related risks may take a bit more digging and research to determine. A starting point for this kind of information may be the National Climate Assessment, which is updated every four years. This report provides a macro-level overview for the different regions of the country, including the Northeast, Southeast, U.S. Caribbean, Midwest, Northern Great Plains, Southern Great Plains, Northwest, Southwest, Alaska, and Hawaii and the U.S. affiliated Pacific Islands. For more granular information, good sources could include local universities, agricultural extension offices, and regionally or locally based environmental research groups. Once the risk factors of your specific site have been identified, you will also need to study up on the risks themselves, how they can affect the built environment. It's not necessary to become an expert, but you will need to understand the basic nature of the threat in order to make informed decisions later. It will also be helpful to identify the local experts on each treatment who can provide assistance to you. Once the threats have been identified, then that information must be applied and analyzed in terms of the site you are working with. For example, if you know the site is at risk of flooding, like the Bay Cottage seen here, then you can start to analyze how the expected flood will impact the building. Obviously, the pilings and lower sections of the building are most at risk from water, but this is a coastal environment, so strong storm surge and high winds also need to be considered. Waves that are part of a storm surge may mean that the structure needs to be reinforced or elevated further, and both the wind and surge will likely lead to decisions about anchoring various building components together. Builders and architects in the past were also responsive to the environment in many places. When this property was constructed on the south shore of Long Island, floods were expected. The building was not intended for permanent occupation. It served as a base camp for clamming, fishing, and hunting. Trap doors or hatches in the floors were included in the design to allow water inside and prevent buoyant forces from washing the building away during extreme high tides. While this is a very specific adaptation treatment, traditional buildings throughout the country were often designed for the climate stressors they were built in. For example, pure foundations are common in the south to promote airflow and deal with high humidity levels. These foundations also work well in flood prone areas, allowing water to easily flow below a building without causing damage. Understanding such traditional design tools that responded to the local climate can be helpful in designing improvements to provide greater resilience. A tool that can be of some assistance to get you started in thinking through the impacts of various aspects of climate change is the impacts table that was published as part of the NPS, Cultural Resources Climate Change Strategy. A link to this table is included in the list of resources accompanying this webinar. The impacts table breaks down the major trends in climate change, which includes temperature change, precipitation change, sea level rise, combined stressors, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. From those major categories are extracted observable environmental phenomena that can impact historic resources. As an example, in the category of temperature change, the table breaks down the observations into increased global temperature, increased freeze thaw cycles, higher relative humidity, increased wildfire, and species shift, among others. For each observable phenomena, the summary of expected impacts on different types of cultural resources are listed. There are entries for archaeological resources, cultural landscapes, ethnographic resources, museum collections, and buildings and structures. Under the increased global temperature observation for buildings and structures, the entry includes increased crystallization of efflorescent salts due to increased evaporation rates, which can lead to higher rates of structural cracking and deterioration. This table is not intended to be comprehensive, but it can be a good place to start thinking through the impacts, and it might give you some good ideas for things to watch for. The impacts table in many instances will lead you to monitoring conditions. We've already talked about monitoring a little, so I won't repeat myself. The important takeaway here is that monitoring and evaluation is a continuous cycle. This is not a step that you ever mark off as complete, particularly as the climate changes, conditions around and within buildings will shift, possibly at a rate that has never been seen in the life of the structure. Paying close attention to the microclimate around your building will give you the best information on which to base future treatment decisions. Documentation can take many forms and can be completed at various scales. In some cases, very basic text and sketches may be sufficient to document certain aspects of a property. At other times and for other properties, more sophisticated and complex documentation, such as highly accurate laser scanning, might be warranted. As preservationists, we usually focus solely on documentation of the building or historic resource itself. However, for the purposes of adaptation, it will be useful in many cases to expand the documentation to include relevant site characteristics that might otherwise be overlooked. For example, it may be useful for properties near coastlines with rising sea levels to begin documenting or noting the typical groundwater level at the property. And for any property at risk of flooding, it is important to learn the elevation of the first occupied floor level, the lowest adjacent grade, and the lowest window or door opening in comparison to the sea level. So your documentation team may include different professionals than you would ordinarily include in a preservation project. To determine where you should focus your documentation efforts, it might be useful to work through some hypothetical adaptation design projects to discover what questions you will want answers to as you reach that stage in your own project. Particularly for the threats that are also fall into the category of natural disasters, like wildfires, floods and extreme winds, there are more than likely federal, state and or local codes and regulations that should be consulted in preparation for making any modifications to a historic building. Depending on the situation, the code may or may not be regulatory in any given situation. But even when you don't have to meet the letter of the code, it is beneficial to understand the requirements and the goals the regulations are attempting to achieve. Documents like this state by state reference guide to wildfire codes and standards may provide insight into both the regulatory environment as well as general information about creating resiliency. Like this page from the report that has a brief overview of wildfire resistant building construction broken down into building features. Once the threats have been identified and the property conditions and characteristics are understood, then it's time to begin problem solving. For every threat, there is a range of adaptation treatments that can be considered. In the case of flooding, we have hopefully made your lives easier by publishing the information you see on the screen, the guidelines on flood adaptation for rehabilitating historic buildings. This is the place we would recommend that you start when assessing feasible adaptations to reduce the potential damage and destruction from floods. It is written in a language you will recognize from other guidelines and relates possible treatments back to the secretary of the interior standards for rehabilitation, providing pros and cons for treatments based on a preservation perspective. For other climate change threats, we can't give you such a handy guide to start you out. But many of the overarching philosophies and ideas from these guidelines will translate to other hazards. In fact, this framework for adaptation that I'm walking through comes directly from the planning chapter of the flood guidelines. As you begin to analyze potential adaptation treatments, there are several criteria to assess for each option. First, if implemented, will the intervention address the risk adequately? You don't want to spend the time and effort to install new drainage around the building because you're noticing standing water around the building after rain falls when the real issue is an elevated water table that's beginning to seep into the foundation. You'll also need to decide on a time horizon for the project. The severity of the threat may change with time based on scientific predictions. In the graph at right, you see what may be a familiar image of climate change predictions. It shows that climate change data involves projections with a range of outcomes possible, depending on the time horizon and the actual rate of change. Selecting a time horizon can be informed by several factors, including the length of time you plan to own or manage the particular property and or the lifespan of the materials or systems included in the adaptation treatment or intervention. It may be useful to plan for a scaled response that can build over time, and in that situation, documentation and communication of that phased plan is vital so that the resiliency you are building in now will not be forgotten or lost in future alterations. Scenario planning may help you figure out feasible interventions and has become one of the favored planning tools within National Park Service site management groups. For each potential adaptation, apply the Secretary's standards and analyze the impact of treatments to the property. Will the historic character be maintained? Can the treatments be implemented without visible changes? If visible alterations are necessary, is it possible to match the appearance of what exists historically? If the appearance cannot be matched, is there a compatible solution? You'll also need to consider viable treatments in the context of the neighborhood or community. Are there local traditions to address the threat and would those help to reduce the risk? Is the local jurisdiction planning community-wide interventions and how are authorities responding to the threat? Is there a point in the future when occupation of that particular site will not be viable or supported by local infrastructure? It's tempting to get bogged down in studying the problem and consulting an ever-growing list of experts from various fields. While collaboration, research and analysis are very important parts of this process, don't get trapped in a never-ending cycle of study that does not include action if action is warranted and feasible. In the case of this historic church in Alaska, time almost ran out as the eroding bluff inched closer to the foundation of the building. The treatment decision in this situation is fairly clear. The building needs to be moved. Several factors contributed to the situation becoming so dire, including the rapid increase in the rate of erosion, feasibility of cost, the remote location, and stability of the surrounding soils to withstand the disturbance required in lifting and moving the building. I'm happy to report that after a successful fundraising effort, the church was moved in early August of this year to a temporary location farther from the edge. The community is continuing to raise funds and search for a new permanent location for the building. It's best to avoid getting so close to the tipping point before making a decision and taking action. Although in some cases, particularly those associated with more gradual changes, the treatment decision may be to continue active monitoring. You will also need to involve all stakeholders as appropriate as you make your decisions. This may be achieved through the Section 106 process, a state or local equivalent to that, or through your own communication and engagement plan. This step in the adaptation framework may begin much earlier in the process than the placement in this list may indicate. You'll also need to obtain necessary approvals and permits before beginning work. Implementation of a treatment will generally require some level of review and approval, whether that's limited to the review necessary for a building permit, the design review of a local historic district, or if there is grant or tax credit funding involved. Ideally, you will get buy-in to the adaptation plan well before actual construction begins. You'll need to be prepared to communicate factors and limitations that helped lead to a particular treatment decision. Once a treatment has been selected and stakeholder and review authorities are on board with the decision, then it's important not to delay implementing the adaptation treatment. The best plan in the world will not actually protect the historic building it was designed for if the plan is not implemented, so it may take some creativity and or financial sacrifice to make an adaptation project happen. With the understanding that funding may be a significant stumbling block for a lot of projects, be aware that there may be grants through traditional preservation sources or through disaster preparedness or sustainability focused organizations or agencies. For income producing properties, the federal historic tax credit may also help with financing. After a building has been adapted to respond to the changing climate conditions, it's important to monitor and evaluate whether the adaptation performs as it was intended. You'll hear more about the examples shown on your screen that was an adaptation for flooding from Jennifer Wellock here in a few minutes. So spoiler alert, the efforts and measures that were taken in this Wisconsin project have been tested and the interventions worked as they were intended. Now, not every adaptation project is tested in this way by an event occurring fairly soon after the project is completed. That does not mean evaluation and monitoring can't occur. In every case, it's a good idea to implement a regular schedule to review the system practice any parts of a plan that require human action, like the deployment of the flood shields at the doorways here on the project shown on the screen. And to monitor the condition of materials and features that may degrade or deteriorate over time. I hope this overview of an adaptation framework has been helpful. My email address is listed here at the bottom of the slide, if you would like to contact me in the future. Our next speaker will be Aaron Minnegan, who is the director of historic preservation for the Preservation Society of Charleston in South Carolina. In this role, Aaron oversees the Preservation Society's planning and zoning advocacy and preservation programs, which further the organization's mission to serve as a strong advocacy leader for citizens concerned about preserving Charleston's distinctive character, quality of life, and diverse neighborhoods. She previously managed architectural review boards and oversaw special preservation and planning projects for local governments within the City of Charleston and City of St. Augustine, Florida. While at the City of Charleston, Aaron helped develop the design guidelines for elevating historic buildings and continues to advocate for innovative flood adaptation strategies to protect Charleston's unique architectural heritage. Hello, my name is Aaron Minnegan, and I am the director of historic preservation for the Preservation Society of Charleston. And today I am very excited to share with you some of the creative and innovative strategies being implemented here in Charleston, South Carolina to address both current and future flood risk. But before we get started, I did want to provide a little background about our organization and the work that we do here in Charleston and the Low Country. The Preservation Society was founded in 1920, and today is the oldest community-based historic preservation organization in the U.S. Here is our founder, Susan Pringle Frost, and a few early members of the Society, as well as the Joseph Mannego House, which at the time was threatened with demolition to make way for a gas station. It was the Society's first preservation fight and victory, and it was the impetus for our organization's founding. But in fact, many historic buildings you see around town are still standing due to the work of the Preservation Society and our members and supporters. But we also had wins in creating legislation that protected historic buildings on a larger scale. The Preservation Society was instrumental in persuading the city to adopt the nation's first zoning ordinance with regulations to protect historic resources in 1931. This ordinance designated 138 acres as the Olden Historic District, and it established the Board of Architectural Review, which was tasked with reviewing and approving changes to buildings within this area. Since this time, the district has grown to cover the majority of the peninsula and today protects the majority of historic buildings downtown in Charleston. Last year we celebrated our centennial anniversary and gathered for an event at 20 South Battery, where Susan Pringle Frost held that first meeting with the Society members and erected a historic marker in honor of this milestone. And we are very excited to begin our second century of preservation work here in the Low Country. So now I wanted to set the stage for today's presentation and talk a little bit about current and future conditions for flooding and sea level rise on Charleston's peninsula. Looking at historic maps of Charleston and how the peninsula evolved, it's really no wonder why the city floods the way that it does today. The Halsey map here on the left shows the historic high waterline, and we can see that much of the western and eastern edges of the peninsula have been infilled to create developable land. And this is where we experience the greatest extent of flooding today because water certainly remembers its path. So here are some scenes of what we see on a regular basis of nuisance and high tide flooding that causes great interruption to our daily lives and damage on a widespread scale, both to our public infrastructure and private property. In the 1970s we experienced two days of tidal flooding a year. In 2016 it was 50 days, which is a record so far. And by 2045 the city is predicted to see 180 days of flooding annually, which is more than half of the year. So it is documented that more than one foot of rise in water level in the Charleston harbor has occurred over the last 80 years. And the NOAA expects two and a half to three and a half feet over the next 50 years. But in the most extreme scenario it could be over five feet. Hurricane Hugo was a historic hurricane that caused significant devastation in Charleston in 1989. The peak crest during the hurricane was 12 feet. And in the future that is projected to be between 19 and 21 feet with similar hurricane conditions. Surprisingly, despite all of this information, the updated FIBA flood maps that went into effect in January of this year went down from the previous elevation requirements. The new maps show primarily a 10 and 11 and in some select areas 12 and 13 with the numbers indicating the amount of feet a house must be raised to meet base flood elevation level. However, we will continue to see historic homes needing to be elevated to meet these FEMA elevation requirements. So now I wanted to talk about how the community traditionally viewed adapting historic buildings and has recently come around to the idea of supporting their adaptation for flood risk. Historically, the Board of Architectural Review was very resistant to any adaptation to historic houses. The foremost elevation requests were traditionally denied due to perceived negative impacts to historic materials, form and relationship to streetscape. So up until recently the preferred approach for historic homes undergoing a substantial renovation and therefore needing to be brought up to code was to seek a FEMA variance. Experiences are available for historic properties located within our National Register Historic District and allow a property owner to not elevate it all or not elevate all the way up to the FEMA requirement. However, this all started to change between 2015 and 2017. When we experienced three major storm events, including Hurricane Joaquin, Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Irma. People would complete repairs to their homes just for them to be flooded again. And it really did get to the point where many houses were left vacant because they were no longer habitable and there was no money left over for continued repairs. So this is when the sentiment started changing in the city and there was a move towards supporting elevating historic buildings. The landmark application where it did change was with 42 Rutledge Avenue. This is a significant building constructed around 1859. And unfortunately the home underwent a fire and then also flooded during those hurricanes and in response the owner requested to not only restore the building but also to elevate it. This was the first opportunity the Board of Architectural Review had to grapple with how to sensitively elevate a historic building and it really did inform our process going forward. Some creative measures were taken to help mitigate the elevation. In particular the Piazza screen which is that door that enters onto the Piazza which is the side porch from the street as well as the steps and the railing were all kept exactly in place. Other positive moves to retain as much historic fabric as possible were made including raising the chimneys in place with the house. This was a major philosophical shift for the Board of Architectural Review for preservationists and generally the Charleston community to support elevating historic buildings. While we understood this would have major impacts to our built environment, it was generally accepted as best for the preservation and continued use of these historic buildings. So it's important to note that at this time the National Park Service flood adaptation guidelines had not yet been published. We don't have state level guidelines in place and when we did research as staff to the BAR we did not find other communities that had formal policies in place on flood adaptation specific for historic properties or districts at this time either. So we decided to forge our own path and come up with a policy and process that was right for our community. We started off by gathering a group of professionals including architects contractors engineers and preservationists at two public workshops, and we hosted a discussion on how to best develop in format the guidelines. During the first workshop, we did an in depth study on how the challenges of our unique built environment present to elevation projects. As well as looking at examples of historically elevated buildings and types of architectural techniques that exist in our city that we felt should inform elevation designs. In the second workshop we drilled down on how elevated buildings could be most sensitively handled and aspects of the context site, all the way down to the details of the design that should be considered in doing an elevation project. So following the workshops staff work to organize and refine the feedback from the panelists into four aspects of design review, including streetscape and context considerations site considerations preservation and architecture considerations and foundation design considerations. The result is a fairly simple document that outlines the guidelines and uses pictures to illustrate successful examples. This is meant to be a resource not only for architects and design professionals, but also for the general public and affected homeowners as well. And with the adoption of this policy, it was formally put in place that the Board of Architectural Review is supportive of elevating to what is necessary for FEMA. Thus far an elevation application has not been denied. It's just a matter of tweaking the design to be as sensitive as possible for the building in the district. And as of the beginning of this year, 18 historic homes have been elevated, 14 were in the process of being lifted, and 14 more have been approved for a total of 46 homes. I quickly wanted to just look at a couple of before and after examples of projects that have been through the process and are now complete. So sister houses are very prevalent in Charleston and the guidelines specifically dealt with this by specifying that the first sister house to be elevated in a grouping is heavily scrutinized as it will inform the design of future houses to be elevated. 9 Savage Street was used as a case study during the 2017 building elevation workshop and panelists gave feedback that informed much of its design, including that the Piazza door was retained near its existing elevation with only one step added to help mitigate the significant increase in height. All important character defining features were retained on the Piazza parapet and the facade and recesses were added to the foundation with an arch detail to reference the characteristic arched window hoods and parapet. This project is one of the most significant noteworthy elevation projects to happen in recent years, and one of the very few elevations of a mason restructure in Charleston. Located at One Water Street, this house sits along what historically was a creek bed that was infill to make way for development during the 19th century. And not surprisingly, Water Street continues to be one of the first areas to flood on the lower peninsula today. The elevation included raising 450 tons of masonry into the air and drilling 94 helical piles 75 feet down to support the new foundation. The design added two new masonry staircases with arched doors underneath and triangle recesses, which complements the symmetrical facade of the Italianate Villa style house. Also the design team added this band around the base of the building which serves not only to break up the expanse of the wall, but signifies the previously existing elevation level. So now I wanted to drill down on some other property level adaptation projects that have been approved within our historic district and are consistent with the National Park Service guidelines. Along with building elevations, the Board of Architectural Review has become much more amenable to other creative adaptation strategies and properties such as barrier protection in temporary floodgates, but always through the lens of retaining a property's historic character. Outside of elevation, the most popular choice for flood adaptation in Charleston is through flood barrier systems or dry flood proofing, both of which are designed to keep water out of a building by sealing openings directly into a building or sealing off the whole property. When the series of hurricanes started hitting several years ago, somewhat informal temporary barriers like these started going up all over the city. However, it is becoming more and more typical for homeowners to install permanent hardware to receive barrier systems during times of an imminent storm. A popular choice has been a barrier system made by Aquastop, which is an Italian manufacturer. And the whole idea behind the system is that when it's not in use, you really cannot see evidence of it because it requires very minimal intervention. For instance, barriers at windows and door openings don't even require permanent hardware. And this is the system used for the next few examples that we will look at. So we will start right where we left off. And this is Three Water Street, which is the sister house to One Water Street. And this owner chose not to elevate, but rather explored a flood barrier system. The only permanent hardware are the post sockets at the driveways. The cap is removed to allow installation of the post and barrier system when a storm is coming, but otherwise has a very subtle presence. In theory, when this is installed, it creates a continuous barrier as there are walls that encircle the other three sides of the property. And this prevents the greatest flood risk of water intruding from the street. However, I will note that this was installed recently and has not been tested in a flood event as of yet. I wanted to highlight this project at Five East Battery, since it's a rather noteworthy building on Charleston's battery that underwent a significant renovation over the past couple of years that included flood-proofing the property and making it more resilient for years to come. In addition to elevating critical ductwork and utilities and installing pumps to get any intruding water out of the crawl space, the project team also reconstructed the failing garden wall along the front of the property and had temporary storm panels fabricated. Using the same system as before, minimal hardware is located at the columns at the driveway gates and in the ground, which are able to receive stanchions which panels are then locked into. Here is an image of the wall barrier in place at the driveway, and the barrier at the pedestrian entrance actually requires no permanent hardware at all. And finally, here's a unique project which adapted its existing historic wall and fence to be more resilient to flooding. The approved proposal was to raise the height of the knee wall and set the historic fence atop the new elevated masonry base. Solid panels were also added to the bottom of the pedestrian and driveway gates to help mitigate the most immediate flood risk, as this area tends to flood fairly regularly during high tide and significant rain events. Here's an image of the property which is in the background, which flooded during one of the hurricanes in recent years. The two neighboring properties have already constructed front property walls with temporary barrier systems, and this project will continue that line of protection. So the project is currently under construction, but here's a little sneak peek. The new elevated wall bases up, and the historic fence and gates are stored on site and will soon be reinstalled. Generally this was a very well received project, since it recognized flooding was a consistent issue for the property, and this solution both met the need for adaptation while also preserving the historic fabric. And just to quickly note, we do have a lot of new construction activity going on, much of which is occurring within flood zones. And commercial properties are able to be flood proofed below the FEMA elevation requirement. So it's very typical to see openings at the ground floor level outfitted with stanchions for flood panels that go up before a storm. So now I thought we could take a step back and look at some larger scale infrastructure projects to see how the city is addressing flood risk on a community-wide scale. In Charleston, one of our most iconic historic places is the Battery, which I'm sure many are familiar with and is actually the common name for a pair of seawalls along the southern tip of our peninsula. The high battery was constructed in the early 19th century to allow for the creation of East Battery Street and White Point Garden, and it stands at a height of approximately nine feet above sea level. The low battery was constructed about 100 years later in the early 20th century, and it sits at about approximately three feet lower. In addition to facilitating development and providing beautiful public spaces, these walls have protected Charleston from intense storm surge at our most vulnerable geographic point. The concrete wall constructed along the low battery between 1909 and 1919 was built on timber decks supported by timber pilings, and so concern about the integrity of the wall led the city to begin assessing the condition of it and repair solutions for it in 2004. While the initial purpose of the low battery project was to address structural deficiencies such as concrete settling and cracking, it has expanded to also address sea level rise. In 2015, the city hired consultants to design the wall adaptation to account for an anticipated two-and-a-half feet of rise in sea level over the next 50 years. The aim of the project is to reconstruct the seawall two-and-a-half to three feet higher to match the height of the high battery seawall. And the city is completing the work in phases at a rate of about 1,000 feet each year. Phase 1 was completed in January of 2021 and encompassed the westernmost and oldest section of the low battery. In addition to raising the seawall, new storm drains were installed for better drainage, as well as four-foot-wide promenades along the top of the wall with granite curbing, bluestone pavers, benches and enhanced planings for the benefit and enjoyment of the public as well. But even bigger than this project is a massive proposal to construct a seawall encircling Charleston's whole peninsula by the Army Corps of Engineers. And if built, would likely be the most significant infrastructure project in Charleston's history. To provide a very broad overview, this proposal is for a 12-foot-high seawall designed primarily to address storm surge risk, which would cost a total of $1.1 billion and be paid for by a cost share between the federal government and City of Charleston. The tentative plan was released in April 2020 and after significant engagement by the city and the community, the plan has been optimized to minimize impact on wetlands, cultural and aesthetic resources, and private property. According to the Army Corps, approximately 50% of the historic structures located on the Charleston Peninsula would be at risk of being inundated to some degree by coastal storms by the year 2075. So we do recognize perimeter protection will be important for the future of our historic district and the Preservation Society is working diligently with our community partners and the city to ensure best possible outcomes for this project. But we can all agree that this will have a significant impact on how we experience Charleston, and it will be critical for the city to be a strong vocal partner and stand up for a design that is compatible and sensitive to our unique historic environment. A positive that's come out of this so far is that it's brought many diverse stakeholders and groups to the table, including various city departments, advocacy groups and residents to collaborate on what we want to see for the future of Charleston, rather than just accepting the Army Corps plan that's been handed to us. In fact, a public-private partnership was formed between the city and many stakeholder groups to fund an analysis and a response to the Army Corps proposal that would address the peninsula's flood reduction needs without sacrificing its essential character. The study was led by consultant team Wagner and Ball and presents multiple wall alignment options and a zonal approach to construction that lessons impacts protects additional properties and recognizes the critical needs for the city beyond the Army Corps project purview. We are still in the feasibility stage of this project and there's still so much that's uncertain. The optimized plan was released to the public on September 10th and we are currently in a comment period before the city and Congress decide to authorize funding for the project. If so, it will enter the planning, engineering and design phase and we will likely continue to see the plan evolve. The wall will take around seven years to construct, so we are still at least a decade out from completion. So stay tuned and keep your eye on Charleston as this major project progresses. So this has just been a quick snapshot of the various adaptation strategies being implemented in Charleston to address current and future flood risk. In recent years, the community has come out in strong support of seeking creative and innovative solutions to protect our unique historic city against increasing flooding events and sea level rise. Because we love the city and want to see it preserved for future generations. But we do grapple with the impact that elevated buildings, property barriers and a 12 foot seawall will cause to our environment and how that will change our experience of Charleston. This is why we work hard to ensure that these changes are as sensitive as possible to the historic fabric and character of the city. New proposals and solutions are coming forward every day. So I encourage you to sign up for our emails or join us on social media to follow along with what's happening in Charleston, both of which can be found on our website at preservationsociety.org. And so now I do have the pleasure of introducing our next speaker, which is Jennifer Wellock. Jennifer Wellock was most recently the review and compliance lead for the state, tribal, local, plans and grants division of the National Park Service. In that capacity, she advised projects on best practices, including those receiving funding for repairs to historic buildings after disaster. She's also a co-author of the guidelines on flooding for rehabilitating historic buildings. On September 13, she moved to a new position with the Environmental Policy and Compliance Division of the U.S. Department of the Interior. In her new capacity, she will continue to provide support to properties that are affected by natural disasters. And with that, I will turn it over to Jennifer. Thank you. My name is Jennifer Wellock and I'm an Environmental Protection Specialist at the Department of the Interior. I'm going to be talking to you today about adaptation at the site level and showing some key studies of fire, wind and flood adaptations. Climate change has been a key factor in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western U.S. Wildfire risk depends on a number of factors, including temperature, soil, moisture and the presence of trees, shrubs and other potential fuel. All of these factors have strong direct or indirect ties to climate variability and climate change. Climate change enhances the drying of organic matter in forests, which becomes the material that burns and spreads the fire, and it has doubled the number of large fires between 1984 and 2015 in the western U.S. Once a fire starts and more than 80% of U.S. wildfires are caused by people, warmer temperatures and drier conditions can help fire spread and make them harder to put out. Warmer, drier conditions also contribute to the spread of other elements that contribute to fire, such as the mountain pine beetle and other insects that can weaken or kill a tree and build up the fuel in a forest floor. Since 2015, forest fires in the U.S. have each cost at least $1 billion, with a B, in damages, mainly from the loss of homes and infrastructure, but also with the firefighting costs associated with them. This graph shows the trends in the annual number of large fires in the west. You can see the trend lines are showing an increase in fires in almost all of the areas shown. The most important thing in a fire is to prevent ignition. And so you need to create a defensible space and use fire prevention landscaping techniques or clearing and remove any sort of fuel that might be there. How you build resilience and communities is to discourage developments near fire-prone forests. You can increase space between structures and clear trees. You can incorporate fire-resistant design features, increase the resources you allocate to your firefighting and fire prevention sources, removing fuels such as dead trees are really important, and also developing recovery plans before you have a fire so that you can implement that plan quickly, and also try to limit erosion damage, flooding that might happen, or minimize habitat damage. Here's an example of a defensible landscape. What you're doing here is you're trying to create an area around a property that will not burn. You're using rock or flower beds that will cover the bare spaces, but act as a protective firebreak. There's no such thing as a fireproof plant, obviously, but you want to pick things that are high moisture plants. So things like succulents, something that has low sap that can act as a fuel. You want to try to have fire-resistant shrubs such as hedging, and you want to put as much there that you can outside the immediate surroundings of the house. The maintenance of properties that are at risk of wildfire is probably it's most important, as well as when you do renovation and rehabilitation to add in construction methods that will help create fire resiliency. There's some on the slide here that talk about making sure things are clean, making sure that if you're replacing a roofing material, you're doing something that's fire-resistant. If you're walls and siding or wood, you're going to try to keep them in good condition. Decks and balconies should be clear of debris. You also want to make sure underneath the deck is closed to any type of wildfire ember chimneys. If you have this, if we have a fire place, install spark arresters around them. Rain gutters should be clear of debris, and firewood should be kept at least 30 feet away from any home. The case study for fire is the Peter Strauss France in Angora Hills, California. A historic property built in the 1920s. It then became a museum park in the 40s. In the 70s, Peter Strauss had purchased it. He was an actor, and he had seen it. He wanted to restore the property to its natural look. He lived there until 1983 when he sold it to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. The National Park Service purchased the ranch in 1987. The property suffered in the Woosley Fire, which happened in November of 2018, and that fire burned about 88% of the park. The structures here were highly important. It was important to the cultural landscape. It was an active park site. The map here shows the extent of the fire in red, and you can see the damage that was done to the ranch house. As Jenny discussed in her presentation, maintenance, monitoring, and documentation are all the foundations for making any building more resilient to climate change and natural hazards. And while in this instance, they did have two reports, a historic structures report and a cultural landscapes report that were done in 2018. Both of those were very instrumental in helping to recreate the structure, but of course you don't want to be in this position where you have to actually rebuild something. This project is still in construction, but I wanted to include it because it's being designed to meet the more stringent code requirements. There's the International Wildland Urban Interface Code, which is IWUIC, that's promulgated by the International Building Code. That establishes regulations to safeguard life and property from the intrusion of wildland fire and to prevent the structural fires from spreading to wildland fuels. This includes ignition resistant materials, construction detailing, reading the exterior doors and windows, adding fire suppression systems, and alarms, sprinklers, and hygiene. This next case study is about wind. Climate models and projections often ignore wind, despite its potential to signal and accelerate climate disruptions. Wind is a wild car we ignore at our peril, given its capacity to increase wildfire risks, aggravate drought, and endanger lives. At state, national, and international levels, climate researchers and forecasters should do a better job tracking and analyzing wind data. This map shows the areas that are in the United States with special wind conditions. The typical wind we're familiar with is a straight line wind, but on this map you see special wind regions that might be reliant on topography, and we also have coastal regions that are hurricane problems. One of the things that is interesting about wind is how it has pressure on a building. When wind interacts with the building, and it doesn't have to be a tornado, it can be both positive and negative at the same time. In this example, the roofs that has blown off has a lot to do with that air pressure. The air pressure inside the home was lower than the outside. When the wind entered it through an open doorway or broken wall, the air pressure inside increased and pushed upward towards the roof. And in this case, that combined pressurized air and the suction pulling the roof actually had it blow off. That's why I'm rarely due to the fact that we use gravity a lot in construction. We assume that the building will always be under the same sort of force. And in this case, the roof was not tied down adequately to the property, and therefore was able to be detached. What an engineer would call out is the continuous load path needs to be solid load path would be tying a building together from the roof to the foundation, so that it can withstand the stress of any high wind. The diagram shows you a tie rod going through the plate at the roof, all the way down through the sill, and then at the sill being tied down to the foundation to create that load path. Because of its potential to damage a large number of properties, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has quite a few documents regarding wind and how to protect yourself from severe wind. Some recommendations they have would involve strengthening the roof, reattaching any loose shingles and using impact resistant shingles, and of course that strapping to create the continuous load. There are other ones that are common sense just as securing gutters, reinforcing garage doors, trimming any dead or damaged trees, and securing objects that can act like a missile during a storm such as propane tanks or trash cans and outdoor furniture. If you're in an area that's prone to severe storms, safe rooms are recommended where you can have a reinforced area that may not be moved by wind. For an example of wind retrofits, I wanted to highlight the yarn or Phoenix Naval Store in Gulfport, Mississippi. The Phoenix Naval Stores Office is one of the last vestiges of the thriving timber industry and was part of a turpentine plant on the coast, which employed many African Americans in the area. When I say naval stores, I mean things that the Navy used to buy such as tar and turpentine and creosote and things that were made out of lumber. In 1943, the yarn plant suffered a terrible explosion, which killed about 11 workers at the turpentine plant. The building survived that and was moved to its current location in the 1940s. It served as a residence until about 20 years ago. The efforts to save the building began after Hurricane Katrina. The city of Gulfport moved twice to demolish the building before a local resident bought it and donated it to the land trust for the Mississippi coastal plain. It was named to Mississippi's most 10 most endangered. And in 2017, the National Park Service provided a $500,000 grant through the African American Civil Rights grant program to convert the building to a community center to highlight the urban industry, as well as the tragedy that happened. What I thought I'd do here is to highlight the areas where the building has been reinforced and tied together. The building originally was a heavy timber frame, and it had bolts to support a concrete plaster wall. And it was near the site of an explosion, but it did survive. And that's because this building was fireproofed with a cementitious coating all the way around it. As the pay master's office, it had an important element inside, notably money that they wish to protect from any sort of fire or explosion. Initially, this timber frame building had this large cementitious coating, which is still there. And it also had bolts that tied everything together. So those actually helped during Hurricane Katrina, they were part of the elements that saved the building from that dramatic storm that happened in 2005. There were two other areas where the, because the interior had been quite damaged and mostly through termites and neglect, when they recreated the interiors, they actually added hurricane ties at the roof and along the framing members. The walls and tears had additional seating added as well. Part of the scope of this project include lifting the building three feet off the ground, so contractors could put a foundation below it before beginning the restoration. This allowed them the opportunity to tie the foundation to the sills, to the walls and to the roof, creating that load path we talked about. A factor that contributed to it being able to survive Katrina and other storms was its mass, but you can see that mass also allowed it to sink a little bit. On the left side, we had the building as built, and the building had actually sunk down into the ground quite a bit and was not actually connected to the foundation. On the right, you see the new detail. The new foundation piers are there. They're tied with a concrete pier. We also have a bolt that goes through the sill. Here's the slide from March 2021 of the project underway, almost complete. I did ask to see how it fared during Ida but that actually wasn't a direct hit. The building was more in the path of Hurricane Zeta, which happened at the end of 2020 last year. That was a category three. And the building fared very well. One of the resilience efforts here were the hurricane ties at the roof, the porch, the ledger, bolting to the new foundation piers and raising the building a few feet to elevate it above the flood risk, all in an effort to protect it from the course of wind. My final case studies are about flooding. There's two types of basic floods, the flash flood, which is excessive rainfall, and then river floods. Those are runoff from longer lasting storms. And when we say river, we can also mean title. So, what we're seeing here is a graph showing that there's new data out there that reveals that many of us are in flood risk zones and we're not aware of it. The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that around 13 million Americans are living within a 100 year flood zone, and they do that through their flood insurance program. However, other studies say it's a lot larger, 41 million are exposed to flood risk. In the last 20 years flood related disasters have cost the US more than 845 billion in damages to homes, offices and infrastructure. In my study about flooding, I wanted to highlight the upper house in Darlington, Wisconsin. This is an example of dry flood proofing, trying to keep the water out of a building during a flood. And it also shows you how hazard mitigation and the implementation of mitigation measures have really made a difference in resiliency for this historic downtown area. In 1883 by Joseph Striver, the upper house is on the second floor of this two-story commercial structure. The upper house was considered to be an important part of the downtown district. And we have used it as a case study in the National Park Services guidelines on flood adaptation for rehabilitating historic buildings. That's in the illustrated version from 2021. The most prominent natural feature of the city of Darlington is the Peccatonica River. It's a source of recreation, but also a source of floods through the ages. Flooding is the most costly natural disaster that affects the city. Here is the number of declared disasters in that area. And while it doesn't wholly capture all the hazards of the area, it does show you the amount of documented storms and how many of them are flooded as shown here as well as the costs in the damages at that time. So those numbers are not adjusted for inflation. In 1993, the city suffered a very severe flood. And here you see the Darlington upper house underwater, water inside the first floor, along with much of Main Street being in the same condition. After the 93 flood, the community adopted a comprehensive plan, and that included four goals. And their main thing was to preserve the downtown district. And they really wanted to eliminate or substantially reduce flood damages in the future. The plan called for the construction of 150 aluminum shields, flood shields, enough to protect every business in the downtown district. After the 150 shields were numbered and lettered for the specific buildings, you see the image here of the bank with all of its panels ready to go. They had retrofitted modern metal hay wagons, three of them were made special to acquire the flood gates and store them. Early warning from flood gauges upriver gives Darlington about eight hours before a floodwater reaches the downtown area. They had enough time to distribute and install the shields. They estimate it takes about six hours to do this properly. Their planning effort led them to the hazard mitigation planning process, which is done in concert with the federal emergency management agency. And theirs was the first to be approved by FEMA in Wisconsin. And it had three main things, acquire and demolish severe repetitive loss properties. That those downtown buildings that could not be elevated were given enough help by either flood proofing them or raising utilities. And also they said, you know, any historic building should be retrofitted while maintaining historic character. And that's really important. And it was a pretty rare example in the 1990s when it was done. The plan led to 19 commercial buildings being flood proofed, and they acquired or demolish 13 other properties. And they also developed a business park out of the flood plain for businesses that had to be relocated. This property, the Darlington Averhouse was dry flood proof because it could not be elevated. In this case you see the rendering shows the filled in basement, as well as the new modifications. And where here was the slab here was actually created with additional metal, and it was about 18 inches and not only provided the strength, but it also acted as a ballast and worked to tie the building from floating off the foundation. In detail, the storefronts above were largely reconstructed to repair and improve their design to be stronger and more flood resistant. Behind the storefront there is a short concrete knee wall behind it that helps to maintain the blood protection, the steel columns were anchored into new concrete foundations. And with the exception of the glass, the storefront framing and the features were all engineered to resist floodborne debris impacts and any hydrostatic forces. All the materials to the exterior of the tallest flood barrier are waterproof and decay resistance. These dry flood proofing measures were completed before Darlington flooded again in March of 2019. This is an image from that 2019 flood which was considered to be the worst flood since the 93 flood. The architects were curious how the building performed and so they sought some information from the driver Opera House and here, this is the quote, we are delighted to report the flood through the floods with flying colors. All flood proofing systems are exactly as designed and no other water and no mass to clean up for the first time in living memory. I will leave you with the knowledge that while climate change is a problem that requires many creative solutions, mitigation measures at the site level can work, and they can enable communities to increase their ability to respond and to recover from disasters of fire, wind or flood. Okay, wow. Hi everyone I'm Jim Lindberg senior policy director at the National Trust for historic preservation as you heard earlier from Lindsay I'm also co chair of the preservation priorities task force climate change working group. And again we're delighted to have partnered with the park service and presenting this webinar today. I just want to offer a couple of words and some additional information before we close. First of all, you know, I think we all recognize that climate change is such a huge issue and I know it can be overwhelming to all of us at times. And it can be hard to recognize how and when we can make a difference in our work and preservation so our hope is that today's session provided a useful summary of the intersection between climate change and historic preservation and more importantly we hope that these presentations have provided some practical ideas for all of you for how you can take action at your side or in your community. I know that our speakers shared a tremendous amount of really great information. You know we heard a succinct summary from Carl of why we must really forcefully promote the idea of building reuse as climate action. We heard about a step by step adaptation framework and how that can be applied. I think a really inspiring example from Charleston about adapting historic buildings but also shifting the preservation mindsets in in that very historic community about what we're going to need to do here in the coming years in the coming years and then finally just some great case studies of protecting historic sites from from threats from fire from wind from flooding and and one that really worked so that was a great way to to wrap up. But I know it was a lot to absorb in one sitting so thanks to everybody for staying staying with this as most of you did. So thanks if if you want to go back you're going to be able to do that later today you'll get an email link to recording of this webinar so you can go through it session by session and take notes and use this as a resource in your work. We heard a great list of additional online resources on preservation and climate change, as well as information about the sustainability and climate action working group that Lindsay and I have mentioned. This is a group we've got a terrific bunch of state and local preservation advocates from around the country are active in this group but we welcome more participation. We just put out the issue briefs or summarizing what we see coming up here in the next couple of months. The goal of this of this working group is to create new resources that will assist all of you around the country in your work to address climate change through preservation. And so if you've got case study you want to help develop or perhaps policy innovation you'd like to help us research and get out to your colleagues around the country we really welcome your help so there'll be information in that email as well about the preservation priorities task force. It is at preservation priorities.org if you want to Google it up now and find more information as well there. And then before we close I just wanted to remind everyone of some upcoming past forward sessions, a week from today, September 28 will have a pre conference webinar on preservation law and easements. And then a reminder that the past forward conference itself is coming up November 3 through the fifth. So if you haven't registered, please do so early registration ends October 4 so get online and get registered for a past forward 2021 will be online again. Virtually and a number of really great sessions on climate change so what you've heard today is is just the beginning. And after the conference, just as we're doing before the conference with these sessions we're going to have a series of post conference workshops on a number of key conference themes including climate change. And these will be deep dives into some specific topics, some conversations as well about climate related topics. Nancy mentioned climate justice such an important issue. So many communities threatened by climate change communities that haven't had really been placed at a great risk. So look forward to those those conversations coming up after the conference in November and I think into December as well. And then finally I just want to thank our speakers, Carl and Brian and Jenny and Jen from the Park Service car from Quinn Evans Aaron from the preservation society of Charleston. And my colleague Lindsay Wallace from Main Street, all of you really did a terrific job and again thanks to the Park Service for co sponsoring this webinar. And then finally to all of you for participating we're all in this together, and we look forward to future dialogue and collaboration and action so I hope this has been inspiring and useful and that everybody has a great day. Thank you.