State, local and federal agencies can now submit disaster recovery ideas to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) using the agency’s new collaborative Web site, DisasterRecoveryGroup.gov, launched Wednesday. Long-term recovery has been a growing concern voiced at emergency management events around the country. The DHS site will function as a tool of the federal government’s newly formed Long-Term Disaster Recovery Working Group, chaired by Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.
“It is vital to our success that disaster recovery professionals and stakeholders provide their input as we move forward to improve disaster recovery efforts across the country,” Donovan said. “This new Web site will give everyone involved in disaster recovery a voice in shaping how we respond, and then rebuild and revitalize communities in the wake of disaster.”
In November, President Barack Obama asked Donovan and Napolitano to co-chair the working group, which joins 20 federal departments, agencies and offices. The group has several mandates:
- Provide operational guidance for federal, state, tribal and local authorities to provide for effective and unified disaster recovery. This includes defining roles and responsibilities, detailing recovery management and operational coordination, articulating communications strategies and establishing measurements for success.
- Review disaster recovery programs and the framework of disaster recovery, and identify gaps as well as overlapping and/or conflicting sources of authority for disaster recovery efforts.
- Examine areas for improved interagency planning and collaboration among federal agencies.
- Examine methods to build capacity within state, local and tribal governments as well as within the nonprofit, faith-based and private sectors; both in recovery operations and in pre-disaster recovery planning.
- Examine successful practices and lessons learned during previous disaster recovery efforts, with particular attention to catastrophic disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Donovan and Napolitano also plan to advise Obama’s efforts to improve long-term catastrophic recovery. They plan to help develop a National Disaster Recovery Framework aimed at providing detailed operational guidance to recovery organizations under existing authorities.
