In March 2021, the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) approved the Centralina Economic Development District (EDD) Disaster Relief Coordinator Grant to support increasing capacity and coordinating inter-local resources to enhance economic resiliency and disaster response systems. The EDA and the Centralina EDD recognize that the increased frequency of natural hazard events, the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing need for immediate recovery and resilience, requires regional collaboration to strengthen response and recovery efforts. The project supports regional emergency management capacity, to meet and plan for recovery, response and resiliency efforts.
The project planning team includes county and city emergency management leaders, local officials, hazard planners, Centralina Community Economic Development, Centralina Regional Planning and IEM, the project disaster management consultant. The effort builds upon, and is not a replacement of, county and city-level emergency management operation plans. The goal is to enhance response and recovery efforts by using the shared âlesson learnedâ perspectives and experiences from this collaborative group.
Benefits include assistance in evaluating and enhancing current local emergency management resources and coordination protocols, assessing opportunities to increase resilience and recovery efforts and building upon the existing regional emergency management strategy, via a Regional Resilience Collaborative (RRC). The objective is to work collaboratively to identify resources, coordinate planning activities and leverage the work and knowledge of each entity to enhance recovery and resiliency plan development and implementation. The project will create a Centralina Disaster Resilience & Emergency Management Regional Recovery Plan Guide and includes Regional Resilience Roundtable workshops in the fall.
Initial conversations with each of the county emergency management directors and the City of Concordâs emergency management director indicate the emergency management landscape reflects strong state, regional and local connections and collaboration for response efforts. Opportunity exists to plan for cybersecurity needs, enhance the content and coordination of Continuity of Operational Plans and the Continuity of Government, coordinate regional sheltering needs and increase education about the important relationship between emergency management, local and elected officials and community stakeholders. Local emergency management directors identified disaster recovery preparedness as an area where additional work and support from Centralina Regional Council would be helpful. The project is anticipated to be complete by the end of this year.
Stay tuned for future updates and additional opportunities to learn more about how this important work improves the economic resilience of the region and supports local response and recovery efforts.
For more information, contact Christina Danis at cdanis@centralina.org
