Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Guide for Local Governments
Case Example: Assessing Capacity Throughout the Process - Panama City, FL, and New York, NY While an initial capacity assessment is needed to successfully launch the recovery planning process, it is important to continuously evaluate capacity to provide current feedback and information for the future. In Panama City, FL, assessments of institutional capacity carried out during the planning process noted a number of issues that were successfully addressed. One issue was that coordination between participating agencies on recoveryrelated subjects had been limited in the past. To address this during the planning process, emphasis was placed on defining how post-disaster roles and responsibilities could be best coordinated. This additional work was successful in developing a strong foundation for recovery but did affect the schedule for the overall planning process. For more information, read Panama City Post-Disaster Redevelopment Plan (PDRP) Case Study, 6.25 Information on capacity gaps can also be identified through a review of past recovery activities. When reviewing its response to Hurricane Sandy, New York City found that the large number of volunteers and unsolicited material donations overwhelmed the non-profit organizations that were helping the city coordinate this assistance.2 In its recommendations, the city noted the need to improve its processes for pre-identifying partners assisting with this work, so that adequate capacity is available to address both the scale of these resources and the need to distribute them over large geographical areas.26
Available at http://www.floridadisaster.org/Recovery/IndividualAssistance/pdredevelopmentplan/documents/Toolbox/CaseStudyPanamaCity.pdf. For more information, read the City of New York’s Hurricane Sandy After Action Report, pp. 29-30. Available at http://www.nyc.gov/html/recovery/downloads/pdf/ sandy_aar_5.2.13.pdf.
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