Returning to normal (or near-normal) after a disaster doesn’t just “happen.” Effective recovery is a coordinated effort among local government agencies, citizens, the private sector, voluntary organizations, neighboring jurisdictions, and the state and federal government.

The recovery process requires planning by more than just the local emergency management agency. For all parties to work together seamlessly after a disaster, plans and agreements must be put into place well in advance, and all parties involved in recovery should also be involved in planning. In this lesson, you will learn about how and why public works should plan for recovery.

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to:

• Explain the importance of planning for recovery.
• Identify key stakeholders and partners who can contribute to the public works recovery plan.
• Describe administrative considerations for public works recovery planning.
• Describe the information needed to create the recovery plan.
• List avenues for acquiring additional resources to assist with recovery needs.
• Explain how risk and vulnerability assessment information is used for recovery planning.

The following resources were referenced in this lesson:

Resources

• FEMA Recovery Resources
• HAZUS-MH
• Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR) Support Annex
• National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP)
• NIPP Training

Public works emergency management planning for the recovery process is an integral part of the overall community-wide planning process for managing a disaster.

Planning for recovery is important because it:

• Helps establish the mission
• Considers community-specific events
• Helps guide the recovery effort
• Sets the stage for identifying potential mitigation opportunities
• Integrates public works recovery activity with other agencies
• Helps identify stakeholders and partners
• Reduces possible future losses
• Helps achieve community consensus
• Integrates public works knowledge and unique funding opportunities into the overall planning process
• Is required for some federal funding

These public works experts were asked to share their thoughts on the importance of planning for recovery.

Click on the images to hear each expert's viewpoint.

Kenneth Miller - Director of Public Works (retired), Village of Mundelein, IL:

Being prepared for a long-term emergency and recovery operation should be done at the same time, right from the beginning. It's important to do that so that you have efficiency and fluency as you move from the response to the recovery operation mode of your event.

You need to document everything. FEMA, insurance companies, even the constituents within your own community, will want to know what was done, when it was done, and how much did it cost to do it.

Try to establish formalized mutual aid agreements and other agreements for other resources that might be needed in an event- especially events that may be more prone to your area, such as near rivers.

Documented agreements are the only way to be reimbursed by either the insurance or FEMA. So it is vitally important to put somebody on documentation from the start, right through the finish.

Review what went right, what went wrong, and be honest about it. Make the changes you can and understand that there are some things that you truly cannot plan or work around.

Most of all, I would say, understand and keep reminding yourself and others as you need to that this too will pass, just like every other bad day. All you can do is focus on making tomorrow better from the lessons you've learned today and yesterday.

Gregg Varner - Director of Solid Waste (retired), County of Charleston, SC:

In 1989, Hurricane Hugo came across the state of South Carolina. Those of us in the local jurisdictions—I was with the City of North Charleston—we spent a good bit of time working with the County of Charleston for managing debris. And we were all a little bit unskilled, you might say. We hadn't had a whole lot of training, but we did get our hands on debris management guides and work through that kind of thing.

The importance of thinking about it from a recovery perspective is when Hurricane Hugo came through, after the cleanup effort was completed, an awful lot of building materials and some tree debris went in the landfill. What we discovered, when it was all said and done, is that the Charleston County Landfill had actually used up 20 years of landfill life as a result of that hurricane coming through.

So, in thinking about recovery, knowing that for us in public works, debris management is a major recovery issue, you've got to ask yourself, "What's the life of my landfill?" Because one hurricane like Hurricane Hugo, taking 20 years, could eat up your landfill life. So, where do you go from there?

John Pennington - Director, Department of Emergency Management, Snohomish County, WA:

One thing for public works entities to remember is that planning is actually becoming a required element of emergency management in order to receive future federal funding.

A good example of this is the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 which required that emergency management departments or jurisdictions develop certain plans before they could receive federal funds after a disaster event. And, slowly but surely, it appears that the federal government is moving the direction by which public works, emergency management, and other critical departments in local state governments are going to be required to continue planning and enhance their planning to be able to receive future federal funds including recovery planning.

Kürt Blomquist - Public Works Director, City of Keene, NH:

In 2005, the city of Keene, we had flooding in our downtown area. Over forty percent of our areas were under four to six feet of water. One of the things we learned in that process was as soon as we started the response, people started asking the questions about what are we going to do with our stuff, our damaged goods? We started talking about, well, what are we going to do with materials that are left beside the road? How are we going to help our residents in beginning the cleaning up? And that process began literally within hours of the EOC activating.

Since that point, we sat down as a department and developed recovery plans, because we've recognized that we need to know, and people need to know, what's going to happen. Whether it's removal of organic debris, trees, limbs, those kind of materials, or if it's going to be materials from houses—grandma's sofa—anything that folks had in the basement.

For at least us in public works, it is a huge, huge operation, and having the right people, at the time that these efforts start, is critical. We've had to identify contractors that have certain capabilities and we have communications with them now that if we get into a situation, they would be available. We've worked with our local hauling company to make sure that they would be available and be willing to support us first in providing packers and other things like that.

This really came home recently with Hurricane Irene. We were very fortunate that we were not hit significantly. But, we had activated our actual recovery and our clean-up plans even before the hurricane hit the area. Close

The public works agency should identify and invite stakeholders and partners to the planning process for recovery. The planning team should include public works agency supervisors or functional directors representing roads and bridges, utilities, facilities, sanitation, parks, fleet management, and other public works functions.

Additional stakeholders and partners may include:

• Emergency management representatives or liaisons
• Other local public works agencies
• Private utilities and engineers
• Department of Health, as a regulatory agency
• Corresponding state agencies
• Historic preservation officers and environmental liaisons
• Financial and procurement representatives

Sample Response

The typical planning team will include public works agency supervisors and directors representing the different agency functions. Additional stakeholders and partners such as emergency management representatives, private utilities, and corresponding state agencies should also be present.

During the planning process, decisions are required in order to assign roles and responsibilities within the public works function. These decisions will help provide a necessary framework to accomplish the administrative duties needed in recovering from a disaster, such as the considerations shown on the graphics.

Click on the following to learn more about administrative considerations for recovery planning.

• Staffing Considerations
• Legal Considerations
• Financial Considerations
• Documentation Considerations

In order to plan effectively for disaster recovery, the planning team needs to gather a great deal of information so priorities can be established, responsibilities can be assigned, and equipment and resources can be allocated appropriately.

Information to be gathered during the planning process includes:

• Pre-event priorities
• Community demographics
• Availability of resources (in-house/other)
• Inventory and availability of goods and supplies
• Jurisdictional responsibilities
• Community-wide recovery plan
• Risk and vulnerability assessments
• Pre-established contracts

At the onset of a major event, the public works agency, as well as others, will likely be beyond their means. Managers will need to exercise a high level of creativity to plan for adequate resources based on the newly established priorities.

Efforts should be made to utilize local resources as much as possible. When additional resources are needed, they may be acquired through:

• Redirected existing in-house resources
• Mutual aid/ Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs)
• Contracting for private resources
• State and federal agencies

Following a large scale event, the public works agency will need to procure or initiate high-dollar contracts for purchasing goods. Planning for a legally defensible emergency procurement process is a necessity. Establishing agreements, contracts, and emergency procurement procedures prior to an event whenever feasible will facilitate a more accountable and effective response and recovery period after an event.

Risk and vulnerability assessment information drives the planning process as it relates to identifying the needed information to be gathered by the planning team. Every community is different, so it is critical that you identify hazards that are most likely to affect you.

Remember, risk assessments provide information about what hazards are likely to occur in your community by answering the question, "What could happen to adversely impact the community?"

Vulnerability assessments include information about how often each hazard is likely to occur, the area likely to be impacted, and how severe the impact may be. This assessment answers the question, "How and where could each hazard affect the community?"

Although every community is different, there are some basic steps that need to be performed to effectively assess risks and vulnerabilities for the community. These common steps are shown on the graphic collectively as the Hazard Analysis Process.

Both risk and vulnerability assessments identify the impact of an event on the public works critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) in your community.

As you may recall from previous courses, critical infrastructure and key resources are the components that are necessary for the health and welfare of the population of your community. These components include public safety services, health care, utilities, transportation systems, and lifelines.

In addition, critical infrastructure and key resources include facilities that, if impacted by a hazard event, could result in high potential loss or release of hazardous materials, which would further result in significant environmental impacts if not addressed by public works or others in the response process.

In this lesson, you learned that planning for recovery is crucial for your community and your public works agency. Successful planning allows priorities to be established, responsibilities to be assigned, and equipment and resources to be allocated.

Remember, key stakeholders should be involved in the planning process for recovery. A coordinated effort in emergency management planning will help your community return to normal (or near-normal) following a disaster.

Keep in mind that there are several administrative factors the planning team will need to consider, and that it's important to plan for the use of additional resources if recovery needs overwhelm the community.

To determine potential recovery needs, the planning team will need to review a great deal of information. In particular, risk and vulnerability assessments provide valuable information for the team.