On January 6, 2025, a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) was posted for FEMA’s BRIC and FMA FY24 Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grants. Both grants have a submission deadline of April 18, 2025, at 3:00 PM ET. Below is more information about each grant: Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) – the estimated total program funding…
Category: Civil Engineering
Can AI Be Used to Check Stop Control Warrants?
For some time I have been thinking about how AI could be used to assist civil engineers and the public works industry. While I have several ideas, one obvious application I’ve thought about is using it to check all-way stop control signal warrants as defined by the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). Since…
A Short Story of Catastrophic Land Subsidence and Jonas’ Lake
The other day a colleague told me about a bean field in Polk county, Minn., which catastrophically dropped 25 feet. After watching the video I noticed the land was located near a river, and the video points out that the land also seems to be pushing into the river. It made me wonder if some…
Noncompliant ADA Facilities – Playground Access – How would you fix it?
The other day I was visiting a community in Illinois for the day and met a local person who was very excited about the new playground equipment being installed in his neighborhood. He encouraged me to check it out since he said it was the first time the community had upgraded the site since his…
Is it Really Climate Change or is it Sewage?
Lately I’ve seen several presentations which all include a similar slide with a graph like the generic one I created below. All the presenters then refer to the graph on the slide and make a statement similar to this: “and because of climate change you can see an increase in flooding over the last several…
ArcGIS Pro – My New Favorite Software
As a public works professional, one of the best things you can do in the new year is to check out ArcGIS Pro – a GIS mapping software by ESRI. I admit, like many GIS software products, ArcGIS Pro can be a little overwhelming to use right out of the box. Even though I am…
National Institute of Building Sciences Updates Mitigation Savings Ratio
On January 11, 2018, the National Institute of Building Sciences released their Natural Hazard Mitigation Strategies: 2017 Interim Report. This document reports an update to their 2005 determination of a mitigation benefit cost ratio of 4:1 where “for every $1 spent by FEMA on hazard mitigation, it is $4 in future benefits.†The new study has…
The Day the FCC Took Broadband out of the Right of Way
The use of public right of way is regulated by local or state government subject to local and state laws. Typically if a utility wants to install infrastructure in the public right of way, it must apply for and obtain a permit from the government agency which has jurisdiction over the right of way. The installation…
The World’s Most Costly Engineering Mistakes
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2017 National Engineers Week Educational Resources
An increasing number of STEM professionals have been flooding the market for the last decade, yet in the next ten years there will be a shortage of professionals in the field. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that from 2012 to 2022, STEM employment rates will grow by 13%, higher than the 11% projected…