It's a Small World Indeed

About 25 years ago (doesn't seem that long), I lived in Madison, a lovely little Connecticut town of about 18,000 people on Long Island sound.  In recent years, Madison, like many towns and cities along the East Coast of the US, has suffered the ever-increasing ravages of climate-driven events.  Storms like “Sandy” and “Irene” damaged coastal structures, flooded low-lying areas, and wrought havoc on power and transportation systems.  Yet those stalwart New Englanders bounced back and the town reclaimed its charm.

Madison, CT

Fast forward to today and I received a link from a co-worker (thanks, Ray!) to a wonderful web page called the Community Resilience Building Workshop, sponsored by the Nature Conservancy.  The site includes information about developing a community resilience plan, including tools for a resilience building workshop and sample plans for communities that have worked through their program.  They add:

“Over the last decade the Community Resilience Building Workshop has been tried, tested, and is trusted by over one hundred communities across 6 states now on the right path to resilience. Community Resilience Building provides a friendly “anywhere at any scale” approach for developing community resilience action plans for municipalities, academia, agencies, corporations, organizations, and institutions. Community Resilience Building employs a unique community-driven process, rich with information, experience, and dialogue, where participants identify top hazards, current challenges, strengths, and priority actions to improve their community’s resilience to all natural and climate-related hazards today, and in the future.”

Imagine my surprise when the first community plan featured on the page was for “Madison, CT.”  According to the document on the web page: 

 

"Recent events... have compelled leading communities like the Town of Madison to proactively plan and mitigate potential risks through a community-driven process. Ultimately, this type of leadership... will reduce the exposure of Madison's citizens, infrastructure and ecosystems and serve as a model for communities across Connecticut, the Atlantic Seaboard, and the Nation."

In 2013, the town partnered with the Nature Conservancy to increase "awareness of risks associated with extreme weather and natural and climate-related hazards and to assess the risks, strengths and vulnerabilities within the Town of Madison.  This focus was actualized through a series of initial presentations, individual interviews and outreach to build stakeholder willingness and engagement followed by a series of Community Resilience Building Workshops in May of 2014. The core directive of this effort was the engagement with and between community stakeholders in order to facilitate the education, planning and ultimately implementation of priority adaptations actions."

The document says the primary objectives of this effort were to:

• "Define extreme weather and local natural and climate-related hazards;
• "Identify existing and future vulnerabilities and strengths;
• "Develop and prioritize actions for the Town and broader stakeholder network;
• "Identify opportunities for the community to advance actions to reduce risk and increase resilience."

According to an article written by Dr. Adam Welchel, Director of Science at the Nature Conservancy and project lead for the Madison team, the top recommendations from the Workshops held at the Town of Madison included the following excellent examples of activities intended to build resilience:

• Install highly visible evacuation route signage and develop/implement supportive communication program to ensure residents are aware of routes and expectations.
• For nursing homes and elderly care facilities, improve power supply with individual generators, and identify facilities in flood zones currently and under future scenarios.
• Engage neighborhood associations and faith-based organizations to develop cooperative response plans with the town via a “Neighbor Helping Neighbor Program” and develop neighborhood-based preparedness and mitigation plans.
• Maintain existing salt marsh resources and increase the sustainability of future wetlands by considering additional regulatory protection (increased setback requirements) and acquisition of advancement zones to prevent impacts to resources.
• Identify planning and zoning best management practices to ensure risk to property, structures, and natural infrastructure (beaches/dunes, wetlands, floodplains) is minimized during the recovery phase of future events.

In his article, Dr. Welchel also confirmed that, “since the finalization of the Summary of Findings report, the Town of Madison has received funding through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program to advance resilience recommendations identified in the project.”

Your town or organization can participate in a program like Madison’s.  If you haven’t begun developing a resilience plan—or even if your effort is well underway—this is another great resource for you!  In my opinion, the group organizational ideas and decision-making tools are exemplary and well worth the visit to the site.

Photo source: The Town’s official page