Snow resorts might be enjoying this winter’s snow but not so much where roofs are caving in due to heavy snow in New England, and snow plows and mail boxes aren’t getting along in the Midwest. The season has also included two weeks of the worst weather ever experienced in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Regardless if it is snow, a natural gas explosion, fire, or another emergency, local government managers and employees are responsible for directing the entire recovery process, including economic recovery.

In ICMA’s Emergency Management, Principles and Practice for Local Government Green Book, authors Brenda Phillips and David Neal provide these key actions in jump-starting post-disaster economic recovery: 

·         Ensuring a liaison between general recovery task forces and the business sector.

·         Establishing strong lines of communication with each company’s executives.

·         Designating a recovery team manager.

·         Assigning specific recovery responsibilities to individuals.

·         Collecting critical information for planning purposes.

·         Identifying loans, grants, insurance options, and government programs.

·         Ensuring strong public relations.

·         Providing administrative support for recovery tasks.

The International Economic Development Council just launched the web portal RestoreYourEconomy.org that includes information and resources to help with the rebuilding after a disaster.

Discover how having a community resilience system in place can ensure your community will be able to rebound quickly from any disaster at ICMA University’s webconference, Rebounding from Disasters: Solid Lessons from a Community That’s Experienced It All, on February 24, 1:00-2:30 p.m. EST.

In the midst of any disaster and during subsequent recovery, a manager doesn’t want to be reminded about planning and the need to be prepared. Most recovery planning, Phillips and Neal say, does come after a disaster because few local governments have the resources or staff to do it before. For the manager who decides that planning efforts are needed, the resources mentioned and the April 2007 PM magazine article “Maintaining Credibility During a Crisis” can provide both planning and recovery information. 

Emergency Management authors Michael Lindell and Ronald Perry describe eight fundamental principles of community emergency planning that can be used to increase preparedness regardless of the amount of funding available: 

1.    Anticipate both active and passive resistance to the planning process, and develop strategies to manage these obstacles.

2.    Address all hazards to which the community is exposed.

3.    Include all response organizations, seeking their participation, commitment, and clearly defined agreement.

4.    Base pre-impact planning on accurate assumptions about the threat, about typical human behavior in disasters, and about likely support from such external sources as state and federal agencies.

5.    Identify the types of emergency response actions that are most likely to be appropriate, but encourage improvisation based on continuing emergency assessment.

6.     Address the linkage of emergency response to disaster recovery.

7.    Provide for training and evaluation of the emergency response organization at all levels—individual, team, department, and community.

8.    Recognize that emergency planning is a continuing process.