FEMA develops Interagency Recovery Coordination Case Studies to share stories of recovery solutions and best practices. The case studies highlight challenging scenarios faced during recovery efforts and detail how emergency managers overcame those challenges.
On September 9, 2013, a major storm front stalled over Colorado, dumping a record-breaking 18 inches of rain across the Rocky Mountains over a week, in an area that typically receives 14 inches of precipitation annually. That rain landed on the tens of thousands of mountainous acres that drain into the St. Vrain watershed, at the base of which sits the town of Lyons (population 2,035).
In 2017, Santa Rosa was ravaged by the Tubbs Fire, part of a series of fast-moving wildfires that spread across Northern California. To better plan for and reduce the risk of future wildfires, the city decided to integrate its community wildfire protection plan and local hazard mitigation plan. The community wildfire protection plan annex builds on the local mitigation plan by providing more detailed, site-specific wildfire assessments and an action plan for mitigating wildfire risk. The city developed the plan through collaborating with local and state officials, private stakeholders and federal agencies.
The city of Nashua used the hazard mitigation planning process to launch a larger effort focused on long-term community resilience. The Resilient Nashua Initiative used city staff across all aspects of government, from public works to public health to the conservation commission. The city also partnered with other organizations.
Learning Objective: Examine how a tribal government with limited prior disaster management experience embraced a collaborative approach after a devastating fire and subsequent floods to successfully build back better.
Examine how the State of Illinois was able to re-prioritize existing funding and resources to meet the recovery needs of communities following a string of severe tornadoes in 2012 that did not meet Presidential disaster declaration requirements.