Since Hurricane Sandy, the NDRF has been used on several occasions to coordinate post-disaster recovery. In the summer of 2013, an ice jam at Galena, Alaska, destroyed 90 percent of the city’s buildings. After the initial federal response was completed, several USACE personnel from its Pacific Ocean Division joined with other interagency experts who began work on a long-term recovery plan for the city. USACE assistance during this phase of the operation consisted of completing studies that will help inform local officials about flood risks as they rebuild along the Yukon River.
Richard Flood, a hazard mitigation specialist with the Federal Emergency Management Agency Region 4 Mitigation Division, watches turbulent waters below Old Hickory Dam in Tennessee while touring the project during a Silver Jackets meeting April 9, 2014. USACE photo by Leon Roberts
Similarly, when floods inundated several counties in northeast Colorado in September 2013, USACE recovery experts remained on station to assist state and local officials with formulating a long-term recovery plan for the affected area. USACE experts provided technical assistance for debris removal, water and wastewater infrastructure assessments, emergency regulatory permitting, and stream analysis to determine the appropriate response to changes in stream flows following the flooding.
“In everything we do now,” said Durham-Aguilera, “almost as soon as we’re there for a response, we’re also sending in the recovery teams to work with the federal disaster recovery coordinator, to fulfill our formal role as coordinator of infrastructure systems recovery. We’re still learning all of this – but it has been launched in a big way as a result of Hurricane Sandy.”
Mitigation
As the Sandy recovery illustrates, well-planned and orchestrated recovery efforts are conducted in concert with the next phases in the risk management life cycle: mitigation and preparation. As the nation’s water resources manager, USACE has been a pioneer in mitigation – activities that can prevent a disaster, reduce its likelihood, or limit its potential damage.
When a project, such as a culvert enlargement or bridge retrofit, is prioritized by a Silver Jackets team, USACE may contribute a small amount from its civil works budget – but the bulk of funding is supplied by other federal, state, and local partners.
The USACE approach to mitigating the risks of flood damage is collaborative, drawing on federal, state, and local resources and expertise, and it encompasses numerous elements, including its Dam and Levee Safety programs. USACE’s Planning Assistance to States (PAS) program provides technical planning expertise in water resources development, and its Flood Plain Management Service extends information, technical services, and planning advice to support effective flood risk management. Both programs work in concert with FEMA’s Flood Mitigation Assistance program.
The flagship initiative for flood risk mitigation is the Silver Jackets program, established in 2005. Silver Jackets teams are collaborative state-led interagency teams that work continuously to reduce flood risks at the state level. Through these teams, now active in 42 states, USACE and FEMA work with other federal and state agencies – and often local and tribal agencies as well – to address a state’s priorities. Silver Jackets teams develop early warning systems; map, inventory, and inspect levees; produce inundation maps; assess the strength of bridges and culverts; and more.
The Silver Jackets program has been an invaluable tool for leveraging the resources of the collaborating agencies and identifying gaps, shortcomings, conflicts, or redundancies that can bog down or prevent a solution. When a project, such as a culvert enlargement or bridge retrofit, is prioritized by a Silver Jackets team, USACE may contribute a small amount from its civil works budget – but the bulk of funding is supplied by other federal, state, and local partners. Typically, a dollar invested by USACE in a Silver Jackets flood risk mitigation project leverages $2 or more from other agencies.
Preparation: Building the Bench
If you’re trying to envision each stage in the risk management life cycle individually, in isolation, you might be missing the point. “The best way to respond to – or even to recover from – a disaster is with good planning and preparation,” said Durham-Aguilera. “Our objective is to be as prepared as we can, to preposition people and equipment as best we can if we know an event is going to occur. Year-round, we maintain a battle roster of all these response teams, a pool of more than 2,000 people. We have emergency support contracts in place, and we have our field force engineering teams in place. We check the readiness of all these teams every single week, because we have to know that our folks are trained, they have their medical screening, they have their technical training, and they are able and ready to deploy. We also have the depth and breadth of folks across USACE to surge across the nation in response to the consequences of disasters.”