Disaster Recovery Guide for Planning Practitioners

To better support planners facing disaster recovery, APA and the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University partnered for a two-year research project, funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Cooperating Technical Partners program, that will result in a "Disaster Recovery Guide for Planning Practitioners." Phase One of the project involved designing and executing a mixed-methods approach for collecting evidence about what planners want and need from an "at-your-fingertips" recovery guide. The two primary research questions asked how planners perceive the disaster recovery process the role of planners in it, and what planners need to know about disaster recovery to better support their communities. The Quantitative Survey Report found that few participants had experience making plans for post-disaster recovery and did not regularly use existing recovery resources. Although the research suggests that there is currently a lack of education and training for disaster recovery planning, participants were receptive to future educational resources, specifically workshops, conferences, symposia, and other interactive training and tools. In the Qualitative Interview Report, themes similar to the survey findings emerged with more specific examples that portray the recovery context today's planners are dealing with.