Silver Jackets: Bringing Agencies
Together for the Benefit of Communities

The State of Ohio - Many natural disasters of recent times have highlighted the need for government agencies to work together not only in the response and recovery phase of the disaster cycle, but also in the pre-disaster mitigation phase. The Silver Jackets Program aims to accomplish that through providing a more formal and consistent strategy for implementing an interagency approach to planning and applying measures to reduce the risks associated with natural hazards.

Essentially, this program proposes establishing an interagency team for each state, comprised of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the State National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) coordinator, and the State Hazard Mitigation Officer (SHMO) as standing members and lead facilitators. This increased collaboration between federal and state level agencies intends to find more ways to leverage resources between agencies, improve public outreach in risk management, and create a mechanism to collectively solve issues through familiarity with other agencies’ procedures and better interagency communication.

Now that it has been active for over a year in the State of Ohio, the Silver Jackets Team has enjoyed some positive results. Though initially hesitant, the State of Ohio now fully endorses the team which has received praise from elected officials. Another important outcome of the project was the discovery of the amount of data available. Several agencies contributed mapping and GIS information, resulting in new sources of information and opportunities becoming available. Finally, the improved communication between agencies has resulted in a better understanding of each agency’s programs and resource constraints.

While the Silver Jackets Program will evolve over time, its initial test run in Marietta has proven successful in achieving the goals it set forth of increasing communication between government agencies for the benefit of states and communities.

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