Hurricane Katrina might seem a distant memory, but for local government leaders from the Gulf Coast cities that were ravaged by the storm, the ongoing recovery process remains a challenge.
It is the long-term nature of disaster recovery, and all of the hard work it takes to restore the many functions of local government, that prompted a group of Florida city managers to respond to a call for help from the city of Pascagoula, Mississippi, last fall. In addition to volunteering some of their own staff, the Florida managers recruited local government professionals from cities and counties across the state to go to Pascagoula for one-week stints to help with everything from code enforcement to public relations.
The Floridians had spent years developing this concept of coordinated disaster recovery assistance informally in their own state, where a network of local governments have developed what they call “recovery strike teams” to help communities after a hurricane or other disaster. Katrina provided an opportunity to test the concept across state lines. With this experience, the Florida managers are taking steps to formalize the strike team concept at home.
To learn more about how the Florida professionals helped their counterparts in Pascagoula, read the cover story in the April edition of PM magazine.
Hear more about the Florida recovery strike teams' work in Pascagoula at Restoration 2007 in the educational session titled ICMA Emergency Management Peer Professionals in Pascagoula. Mississippi, Thursday, May 3 at 10:30 in Napoleon A2.