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Readying Your Community to Deal with Disaster

Photo of damage from 2011 Joplin, Mo, tornado

Homes were leveled with the force of 200 mph winds as a F5 tornado struck the city the night of May 22, 2011.

Credit: Jace Anderson/FEMA

This week, experts are meeting at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Hoboken to discuss how communities can prepare themselves to minimize the impacts of major disasters like Hurricane Sandy, the 2012 "superstorm," and quickly restore vital functions and services. The workshop is the second of three sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

In a post on The Commerce Blog, Stephen Cauffman, NIST's lead researcher for disaster resilience, writes, "Although communities cannot dodge hazardous events ... they can take concrete actions in advance to minimize the toll that natural—and even human-caused—hazards inflict and to speed up the pace of recovery. Communities can make themselves more resilient to disasters."

"Providing tools and guidance to help U.S. communities become more disaster resilient is the goal of a collaborative, nationwide effort led by NIST. Carried out under the President's Climate Action Plan, this recently launched national initiative will yield a comprehensive disaster resilience framework that will help communities develop plans to protect people and property before disaster strikes, and to recover more rapidly and efficiently."

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Released July 29, 2014, Updated January 25, 2023