As the month of February draws to a close, so too does the first set of training sessions for the COAST Resilience Institute. First announced back in December on this website, the COAST (Community Outreach and Strategic Training) Resilience Institute is a year-long program aimed at equipping elected officials, municipal staff and other community stakeholders with the latest science-based research for enhancing local decision-making and improving resilient planning practices.
The winter session was highlighted by a diverse array of training topics on subjects such as future flood risk, severe weather preparations and the FORTIFIED building standard. One more winter training event has yet to occur, which is the FORTIFIED training event at the NOAA Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center in Mobile, Alabama, on Feb. 26. Looking forward to the spring, the project team is on the ready with an entirely different set of training options.
Though times and locations for the spring workshops have yet to be finalized, the team has settled on four training options at the moment, which are proposed for the following dates. Feel free to continue to check the webpage for the COAST Resilience Institute as there may be other training sessions developed for the spring quarter:
- Tools Training Session in Mississippi, Thursday, March 14.
- Community Rating System Workshop, Friday, April 19.
- Virtual Flood Risk Training Session, Thursday, May 2.
- Tools Training Session in Alabama, Tuesday, May 14.
As with the winter training sessions, these topics are the result of input gathered from local government officials and community stakeholders over the course of the past few months. Of particular note during this spring quarter are the tool training sessions, where participants will be exposed to multiple resilience tools and have a chance to interact with them. Also, a full-day Community Rating System (CRS) workshop will be held to provide insight into the Program for Public Information (PPI) and local case studies will be shared on communities who are using this program as part of their CRS outreach. A wide variety of continuing education credits are available as well for workshop attendees, such as AICP credits for land-use planners and CFM credits for floodplain managers.
Any individuals who are interested in attending one or more of these events are encouraged to visit the registration page for periodic updates. Project team members will be updating the page in the next few weeks with specific times and locations for the proposed training events. If you have any questions about the program, or have input to offer on possible training topics, you can always contact me via email or you can reach out to the project manager, Qiyamah Willams.
Meet the author
Stephen Deal
Extension Specialist (Land Use Planning)
Stephen works with floodplain managers, building officials, city officials, scientists and Sea Grant partners to provide information and training related to flood and storm resilience. He holds a... Read more
Phone: 228-435-9527
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