Disaster Recovery Frameworks/Plans

Lead

Varies: typically involves city, county, or tribal planning departments, public works departments, and emergency services. May be led by an Interagency Recovery Team, Local Disaster Recovery Manager (LDRM), or other regional coordination bodies and special districts. 

Required Consultation, Review, and Approval

• Consultation: N/A
• Review: N/A
• Approval*: Elected official/board - city council, county board of supervisors 

*(Approval not required by state or federal statute).

Enabling Statutes

N/A

Required Components [Flood-After-Fire]

• Communities participating in the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) must describe their continued compliance with NFIP requirements, including relevant floodplain management programs (44 CFR § 201.6(c)(3)(ii)). [Learn More about the National Flood Insurance Program]

• Georgetown Climate Center Equitable Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery

• American Planning Association Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery (2014) and Disaster Recovery Resources

• FEMA Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Guides for Local, Tribal, and State Governments (2017)

• FEMA Long-Term Community Recovery Planning Process (2005)

• FEMA Community Recovery Management Toolkit (2021)

• Align the recovery vision with existing community goals and plans and draw on the same data and funding opportunities, while offering greater specificity on hazard mitigation objectives and actions that reduce risks.

• Develop a pre-disaster recovery framework that can be updated and built upon in a post-disaster recovery plan. Developing a recovery framework pre-disaster identifies and bolsters public awareness of recovery protocols and capacity of local governments. Communities that participate in pre-disaster planning are more likely to rebuild faster and make rebuilding decisions that incorporate future climate and disaster risks. 

• Consider developing a pre-approved disaster recovery emergency ordinance to complement a disaster recovery plan, so that it can be quickly updated or utilized for rapid rehousing, debris removal, etc. An emergency ordinance can support regulatory streamlining and temporary zoning exemptions while the community responds and recovers to a disaster.

• Partner with a regional coordinator to create an interjurisdictional disaster recovery strategy. Planning for disaster recovery inevitably requires regional housing, infrastructure, and economic development strategy coordination. Regional coordination can support smoother provision of response and relief resources and encourage regional rebuilding strategies. 

• Include a disaster funding timeline and alignment roadmap to prepare a community for funding opportunities when they become available at different stages of the disaster cycle: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) and PA, along with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) disaster recovery funds, represent a few options for federal disaster resilience and recovery funding. FEMA funds cost-effective mitigation measures under the PA program in conjunction with the repair of disaster-damaged public facilities. It is critical that a community is aware and involved in the development of potential eligible projects in close coordination with State and FEMA counterparts to help identify possible mitigation opportunities under the PA program. Through the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) Program, HUD funds long-term recovery and risk reduction projects with an emphasis on low-and-moderate income populations. CDBG-DR, and its companion Community Development Block Grant Mitigation (CBDG-MIT) Program, can be used as local match for HMA and PA-funded projects. 

• Utilize the California Disaster Recovery Framework (CDRF), which aligns with the Federal Disaster Recovery Framework, to align local priorities with state- and federal-level recovery priorities. The CDRF can also help local, tribal, and regional agencies create their own local recovery structure and outline how they will work with the support of state and federal recovery support functions to implement long-term recovery strategies and actions.

Flood-After-Fire Specific Opportunities

• Leverage existing community engagement mechanisms to communicate risks associated with wildfire and post-wildfire hazards such as flooding and debris flows, as well as associated resources, to the public. Gather input on effective forms of communication during a disaster, as well as the community’s perspective on vulnerabilities to existing infrastructure.  

• Recovery policies outlined in recovery plans should consider both direct disaster impact and possible cascading impacts.  

•  Ensure strategies related to debris removal to work in coordination with those outlined in applicable debris management plans. Review these plans to ensure that there is adequate capacity to deal with debris quickly after a fire.  

• Consider vulnerability to and impact of cascading disasters on built and natural systems during pre- and post-disaster recovery planning. 

• Utilize the “Post-Disaster Window of Opportunity” to address previously under-recognized or entrenched vulnerabilities in the built environment, natural landscape, and community. The recovery process should prioritize multi-benefit projects that work towards both greenhouse gas mitigation and climate adaptation goals. 

• Consider leveraging any relevant risk assessment information in the LHMP or other updated local planning documents, including existing climate vulnerability assessments, to help inform disaster recovery planning. CWPPs also have risk assessment and mitigation project information specific to wildfires that would be useful for recovery planning.

• Utilize vulnerability assessments incorporating historical, current, and future-projected data to identify priorities for additional studies on specific hazards and regulatory matters that are of concern to a community.

Flood-After-Fire Specific Opportunities

• Utilize the State Hazard Mitigation Plan and FEMA’s flood insurance rate maps (FIRM) to identify the location and extent of flood and debris flow hazard. Assess future flood-after-fire risk under climate change scenarios by incorporating climate change projection data from Cal-Adapt and other sources on flooding frequency & intensity, and water table, precipitation, and seasonal water availability.  

• Conduct a post-fire reassessment of hazard risk, including detailed erosion, sedimentation, and debris flow studies. This assessment will help determine where flood mitigation strategies identified during pre-disaster (“pre-fire”) planning are employed post-fire.  

• Develop evacuation plans specifically for post-fire hazards such as flooding, debris flows, and mudflows. 

• Consider risks to community wellbeing and health. The vulnerability assessment should answer questions such as, “Who would need help after a flood-after-fire event?”, “What does the community need to do to aid in recovery?” 

• Align a Disaster Recovery Plan with an Emergency Operation Plans/Emergency Action Plans (EOPs/EAPs) recovery chapter or annex to facilitate a seamless transition from emergency response/short-term recovery to intermediate- and long-term recovery. 

• Take stock of the plans that are linked to recovery, as disaster recovery planning may be most feasible and effective if integrated into existing planning documents and processes. Frameworks may be developed as standalone documents; incorporated as an appendix to an existing plan such as a General Plan, Climate Adaptation Plan, EOP/EAP, or LHMP; or integrated throughout one or more of these. In contrast, Disaster Recovery Plans, though integrated and aligned with other local plans, work best as standalone documents to convey the importance of long-term recovery actions, activities, and policies detailed in the plan.

• Inform the Disaster Recovery Plan with climate information (greenhouse gas mitigation, adaptation, and resiliency strategies and actions) included in the General Plan Safety Element or local Climate Adaptation Plan. The Safety Element also includes residential vulnerability and evacuation route information that should be utilized in recovery planning. [See AB 747 and SB 99, or Gov. Code §§ 65302 and 65302.15.]

• Use existing goals and projects in the General Plan Housing and Land Use Elements as the foundation for the recovery plan, including expanding housing access for residents of all income levels and targeting new development into the existing development footprint in order to protect natural and working lands, reduce the fiscal costs of sprawl, and limit future disaster vulnerability. This approach, also known as infill development, will help align recovery planning efforts with policies and building codes already in place while helping to identify where changes might need to be made to support the building back of safer communities that are more resilient to future disasters. 

• Include the LHMP’s risk assessment and mitigation actions in recovery community redevelopment efforts to support building back better and stronger. Once a recovery plan has been completed and a funding strategy has been identified, funding information can be compared to mitigation actions in the LHMP to determine if applicable funding opportunities for mitigation projects have been identified during the recovery planning process.

• To fully leverage the FEMA PA Funds described above for implementing a Disaster Recovery Plan’s mitigation measures post-disaster, incorporate the LHMP into the Safety Element when the next opportunity arises. Under AB 2140 (Gov. Code §§ 65302.6 and 8685.9) this enables jurisdictions to be eligible for consideration for state funding to cover the local match (6.25%) of FEMA PA costs for recovery activities after hazard events.

Flood-After-Fire Specific Opportunities

• To help align a disaster recovery plan with Safety Element hazard risk assessments, the following data types are useful for assessing near-term flood-after-fire hazards: 
  • Post-fire fuel hazard ratings, 
  • Fuel conditions relative to future flood control, 
  • Areas prone to flooding, landslide, and debris flow, and 
  • Post-fire air, water, and soil quality. 

Consider carefully whether your alignment (planning) team or advisory groups should include any of the entities from each of these stakeholder types, as applicable to your jurisdiction, and how and when to engage different stakeholders to achieve the most equitable and accurate results.