Kitty Hawk, NC

Kitty Hawk, NC, a scenic coastal town nestled in the Outer Banks, is no stranger to the challenges of living along the Atlantic Ocean. With its shifting shorelines, sensitive coastal ecosystems, and increasing storm activity, Kitty Hawk’s floodplain management responsibilities are extensive and complex. Compliance with local, state, and federal regulations, particularly the Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA), guides the town’s approach to protecting life, property, and natural resources.

Like many small coastal communities, Kitty Hawk has faced challenges in coordinating its floodplain programs. The town’s efforts to align CAMA regulations with FEMA requirements and Community Rating System (CRS) goals were slowed by dispersed data, limited staffing, and outdated tools. Time-intensive manual processes left little room for strategic planning or proactive outreach. This friction reduced operational efficiency and complicated compliance efforts amidst growing risk and regulatory complexity.

“We know the damage that flooding can do, and we are focused on doing whatever we can to protect our community for the future, which includes tapping into new technologies to help us become more effective in our work,” shared Rob Testerman, Director of Planning and Inspections for Kitty Hawk.

A Partnership to Simplify Compliance and Elevate CRS Workflows

In 2023, Kitty Hawk partnered with Forerunner to implement a centralized digital system designed to reduce the administrative burden of floodplain management while improving compliance tracking and resident communication. Forerunner’s platform consolidated critical datasets, automated manual workflows, and introduced new tools for regulatory visualization – laying the foundation for a faster and more effective approach to resilience.

The impact on internal operations was immediate. Tasks that once took hours, like retrieving property records, generating compliance letters, or reviewing Elevation Certificates, could now be completed in minutes. By streamlining these time-consuming processes, the town has significantly reduced staff hours spent on repetitive or duplicative work, allowing more time for high-priority planning, permitting, and community engagement.

Visualizing Coastal Risk Through Custom Map Layers

A pressing need for Kitty Hawk was understanding and visualizing development constraints within Areas of Environmental Concern (AECs), including ocean-erodible zones and dynamic shorelines. These areas are central to CAMA compliance and must be clearly delineated for consistent enforcement and permitting.

Forerunner addressed this by creating customized map layers tailored to Kitty Hawk’s needs. These layers included pre-project vegetation maps to track baseline vegetation before development, ocean erodible area maps to highlight regions vulnerable to shoreline erosion, and setback line and area maps to delineate North Carolina’s regulated coastal setbacks. Kitty Hawk staff are now able to reference this geospatial data directly within the Forerunner platform, enabling faster permitting decisions and greater consistency across reviews. The time saved through clearer visual references, particularly during site plan reviews or staff discussions, has helped streamline permitting timelines and reduce the likelihood of errors or misinterpretation.

Kitty Hawk’s geospatial dashboard has helped the team expedite approvals and enhance alignment with state regulatory requirements. Processes that previously required the cross-referencing of multiple maps, spreadsheets, and paper records are now conducted seamlessly within Forerunner’s centralized system.

Property Profiles that Centralize Compliance Information

By integrating CAMA regulation data directly into Forerunner, Kitty Hawk created comprehensive, per-property profiles that consolidate FEMA flood data, local permitting history, and state development constraints. This centralization has eliminated the need to search across multiple file systems or request records from other departments.

Every property now has a compliance history, with substantial improvement and damage data tracked over time and backfilled for historical continuity. This single source of truth ensures that any staff member can quickly understand a property’s regulatory context and development limitations.

The reduction in manual data retrieval and verification has freed up staff capacity, offering a substantial return on investment for a small town with limited human resources.

Transforming CRS Workflows with Smart Tools and Centralized Data

CRS compliance once demanded days of staff effort gathering documents, reconciling data, and preparing reports. With Forerunner, this process has been significantly streamlined. AI-powered Elevation Certificate (EC) error detection reduces the time needed for manual review and improves accuracy across submissions. EC data can now be extracted, organized, and exported as structured data tables within minutes, accelerating the CRS reporting process and reducing costly errors. 

By transforming a labor-intensive, paper-heavy process into a digital-first workflow, the town is saving dozens of hours annually in CRS documentation preparation and review. This increased efficiency directly translates to community-wide resilience and financial benefits with discounted flood insurance premiums.

Empowering Residents with Public Access to Flood Risk Information

Forerunner’s public-facing website has created new pathways for engagement and education across the Town of Kitty Hawk. More than 3,500 residents, along with real estate professionals and insurers, can now self-serve critical property information – like ECs, building restrictions, and compliance guidance – without placing additional burden on municipal staff.

This transparency builds community trust and reduces the volume of inquiries that previously required phone calls, email follow-ups, or in-person visits. Residents can submit questions through the platform, streamlining communication and documentation while giving staff more time to focus on complex permitting or enforcement cases.

By shifting frequently asked questions and requests into an accessible online tool, the town has freed up administrative resources while empowering residents to educate themselves about their flood risk.

Looking Ahead

Kitty Hawk is continuing to expand its use of Forerunner as it prepares for its upcoming CRS 5-Year Recertification. Currently, a Class 6, the town aims to achieve a Class 5 rating – a milestone that would deliver greater insurance savings for residents while acknowledging the town’s commitment to resilience. As part of this effort, Forerunner will help streamline the creation and delivery of Repetitive Loss Area Analysis (RLAA) notification letters – a task that previously required days of coordination and manual outreach. The town also plans to further promote the public website with a focus on increasing resident awareness and engagement around flood risk and mitigation.

Conclusion

Kitty Hawk’s partnership with Forerunner marks a pivotal shift in how small coastal towns can scale their resilience efforts. By automating core workflows, centralizing compliance data, and enabling faster, more accurate decision-making, Kitty Hawk has not only improved operational efficiency but also strengthened public trust, improved CRS readiness, and laid the foundation for long-term resilience.