9.2. Role of Local Officials in Resilience

Communities face any number of natural hazards based on where they are and how they were developed. The local emergency manager often leads the response to and recovery from disasters resulting from natural hazard events. However, local municipal officials also play a key role in local resilience.

Municipal officials make important decisions before, during and after disasters. Plans and policies will directly inform how a community is able to mitigate, prepare, respond and recover. Local leadership are responsible for making sure these capabilities, plans and policies are put in place, exercised and maintained. They also keep plans and policies current, relevant and reflective of the community. Our local officials are advocates for long-range planning, collaborative community engagement, education and information sharing, and responsible fiscal management. This will ensure resilience initiatives get the resources they need.

After a disaster, local officials may work with the private sector and other government organizations to assess gaps and assign scarce resources. By working with emergency managers, municipal officials can better know the community’s needs and make informed decisions. FEMA published a Local Elected and Appointed Officials Guide in 2022. It helps convey the role that local officials play in emergency management.

Partnerships are key to reaching your resilience goals. These goals are often complex, cross-cutting and integrated. They will benefit from expertise within your organization, community leaders, neighboring and regional jurisdictions, visitors, workers and residents. Strong ties with strategic partners across all sectors of your community can improve coordination, promote equitable outcomes and reduce risk.

Focus on solidifying ties with leaders in your organization and community. You likely engaged many of these stakeholders as you developed your hazard mitigation plan. You may have worked with elected officials, economic developers and mapping and finance experts. In your community, you may have worked with school officials, faith leaders, activists, nonprofit groups and other key connectors. This is your core group of resilience champions. Think about whether groups that were not involved in hazard mitigation planning (e.g., transportation planners, local businesses) can add to your resiliency efforts.

Developing and keeping up community relationships means conducting strategic outreach. Historically, underserved communities and socially vulnerable populations have been left out of mitigation conversations and efforts. As a result, a subset of the population is at increased risk and more vulnerable to hazards.

Whole-community involvement throughout the planning cycle benefits everyone. It improves the planning process, the plan itself and how you carry out mitigation actions. Data analysis and mitigation planning are both key components of a strong mitigation plan. Still, do not overlook the value that comes from a community’s lived experiences. Locals may know a place that floods often but isn’t shown on the flood risk maps. Neighbors may have their own ways to communicate hazard risk to friends and family if there is no early warning system. Community social networks are often a lifeline, especially in low-income and underserved communities. You should use them to ensure you factor those residents, groups and areas most at risk of hazard exposure into the process. While there is no “one-size-fits-all” plan, one that reflects the whole community it serves will succeed in the long term.

Involving local partners can also boost a community’s interest in, and buy-in for, the mitigation plan. The process can open new communication channels among underserved groups, the planning team, other departments, and local leaders that will build mutual trust and strong ties. When all members of a community have a voice in the process and a way to communicate their challenges, local leaders can better target assistance to those who need it most.

To ensure that all members of the community have access to current information and resources, communicate early and often throughout the planning process. You can do this by:

• Creating and using a network of nonprofits and community-based organizations for contact lists.
• Sending out regularly scheduled updates on the mitigation planning progress. You can use both new and established newsletters and listservs.
• Working with local news outlets to give periodic interviews or write about mitigation planning updates.
• Holding regular public meetings about mitigation and community-based resilience. You can make these more accessible by providing translators or ASL interpreters, as well as offering a virtual or hybrid option. Refer to section 4 of FEMA’s State Mitigation Planning Key Topics Bulletins: Planning Process document for more information on planning for virtual or hybrid meetings.
• Ensuring all public mitigation planning documents and schedules are accessible to a wide audience. You can publish them online and promote their release through social media. For those without internet access, consider distributing hard copies of planning documents during public meetings or posting them in publicly accessible locations.

A long-range plan, commonly referred to as a comprehensive plan, is meant to serve as a community blueprint for the next 20 to 25 years. The local governing board decides whether to use a long-range plan. Some states mandate this type of plan, while others let the jurisdiction choose. To ensure the plan reflects the community it serves, the governing board should establish a steering committee. It should include residents and representatives to bring a local perspective to the process. 

Long-range plans assess your community’s existing conditions. They set goals and objectives. They also outline key action items that are supported by a strong vision statement. Engaging the community is a key part of any long-range plan. Residents and businesses contribute to defining a vision for the future of their community. Participatory visioning creates ways to define the community’s values, challenges and opportunities. You can do this through targeted outreach and trust-building activities, such as focus groups, design charrettes and open houses. Outreach may require the planning team to go directly into the community. Meeting residents where they are will likely lead to strategies that are both actionable and achievable. This will help reach your community’s resiliency goals.

You should also think about how your community might change over time. Find data on external changes, like climate and economic trends. Think about how your community can reach its goals in light of these future changes. Your policies and projects can guide development away from at-risk areas and toward safer areas and methods of construction.

Long-range plans give a baseline assessment of your entire jurisdiction (village, town, city, county, etc.) The plan lays out your community’s existing conditions, vision, goals and policies for future growth and development. It should serve as an organizing framework for other targeted plans and studies, including the mitigation plan. It can also be a framework for local land use regulations established through the local zoning and subdivision law. Aligning your plans will be the next step in your community’s resilience process.

Your community’s long-range vision should inform policies and regulations. Land development codes – such as floodplain development and subdivision regulations – align with your expected future risks. Current minimum code requirements may not be enough to withstand more frequent and severe weather events.

During the hazard mitigation planning process, your community needs to think about other plans and policies. It must also describe how elements of the mitigation plan will inform other planning mechanisms. You may have included a state-level mitigation plan or code; coastal zone management plan; regional strategic plan; or local land use, adaptation or economic development plan. When thinking about how to integrate your plans to support resilience, start building on your understanding of links between planning documents.

As you update your community planning documents, continue to unify goals and align efforts. This is also a chance to strengthen ties with partners across your organization. Your plan is more likely to succeed when you coordinate with partners, value their viewpoints, and put their expertise to use.

Specific projects also offer chances for coordination. Often, resilience and hazard mitigation projects offer co-benefits that are valuable to your partners. Your partners may also introduce new ideas, connect you with key stakeholders, or combine funding to reach complementary goals.

Some communities focus on resilience through a dedicated resilience plan. For example, Larimer County, Colorado, and Chicago, Illinois, have this type of plan. These plans document community vision, goals and projects or activities that advance resilience. They also refer and align to previous plans and ongoing initiatives.

Larimer County and Chicago followed different processes to develop their plans. Larimer County started by creating a local steering committee to direct the planning process and carry it out. Its members came from local, state and federal governments; community-led coalitions; nonprofit organizations; and businesses. The committee held two problem-solving workshops with officials from local, state and federal governments, as well as nonprofit organizations. In the first, attendees outlined the community’s context and developed a vision, goals and specific strategies for resilience. In the second, they reviewed potential shocks and stresses as well as challenges and opportunities for resilience. The committee used this feedback to draft its resiliency framework.

Chicago created a new, permanent, city-level position for a chief resilience officer (CRO). The CRO led a two-phase process to develop the resilience strategy. Phase 1 involved research, surveys and workshops to learn Chicago’s strengths, threats and key challenges. This work also highlighted existing efforts to improve resilience. In Phase 2, the CRO built a steering committee. This involved the public, private, nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. The committee helped to pinpoint the root causes of resilience challenges and potential solutions. The resilience plan, goals and actions grew out of this work.

Other communities integrate resilience as a core value of other plans, including mitigation plans, sustainability plans and long-range plans. The Charlottesville, Virginia comprehensive plan update (2021) includes resilience as a core goal to address environmental, climate and food equity challenges. While Charlottesville was updating its long-range plan, the city was also developing an affordable housing plan and zoning update. Working on all of these plans at the same time led to integration and alignment.

However you choose to focus on resilience, make sure that you have defined goals and clear metrics to track progress. A measurement framework will help you to identify challenges early. It can also help you highlight successes along the way.