PHILADELPHIA – Long term recovery begins and ends in local communities. To support state and local officials, and help build back communities to be more resilient, FEMA developed the National Disaster Recovery Framework, also known as the NDRF, to help guide federal agencies in their support efforts. The NDRF empowers federal, state, local and other partners to work together to find solutions for some of the major challenges communities face after a disaster, such as housing needs, rebuilding the local economy, and preserving the communities’ heritage and traditions while making strides towards resilience against future disasters.
FEMA Region III has released a podcast on the NDRF to help explain how the program works and our goal in working with and supporting communities’ long term recovery. The podcast is a great way to learn more about the framework, roles, responsibilities and objectives. It is available at https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/audio/126251 and through the Multimedia Library Audio section. The podcast interviews FEMA Region III’s Federal Disaster Recovery Coordinator (FDRC) Kevin Snyder and Community Planning and Capacity Building (CPCB) Coordinator Michelle Diamond on the NDRF, as well as how FEMA works with our partners to make long term recovery happen for communities.
Below are some excerpts from the podcast:
FDRC Kevin Snyder: “In Region III we have what we call our Recovery Support Function Leadership Group and that is a steady state group, we meet monthly and we talk about our issues, needs, and activities and through that network we can reach back to our regional infrastructure system partners and say hey – here is this issue that we didn’t identify early on but we are seeing right now. What are your ideas of how we can coordinate solutions to address that? And kind of take it from there.”
CPCB Coordinator Michelle Diamond: “…we do work with a number of federal partners, but in addition to the federal partners, we also work with the private sector, with universities, with professional associations, foundations, and nonprofits and all of these partners – they all have the goal of working with local governments and state governments to help address issues of local needs for planning and for capacity building.”
To listen to and download the podcast, please visit https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/audio/126251. For more information on the NDRF, please visit https://www.fema.gov/national-disaster-recovery-framework.
FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards. FEMA Region III’s jurisdiction includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. Stay informed of FEMA’s activities online: videos and podcasts are available at fema.gov/medialibrary and youtube.com/fema. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/femaregion3.
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