The Silver Jackets Team of the Year is an annual award that recognizes an outstanding interagency team that exemplifies effective life-cycle flood risk management within the context of shared responsibility at all levels. The annual recognition is selected by a peer voting process, with members of state teams voting from the list of teams nominated that year.  Meet the Puerto Rico Silver Jackets and the Nebraska Silver Jackets, the 2020  and 2021 Silver Jackets Team of the Year, respectively,  as they share lessons and tips for working effectively together. 

Presenters:

Puerto Rico Silver Jackets – 2020 Team of the Year:

• Marieli Alvarez-Ulloa, Puerto Rico Planning Board
• Brian Balukonis, USACE Jacksonville District

Nebraska Silver Jackets - 2021 Team of the Year:

• Jaime Reinke, Nebraska Department of Natural Resources
• John Gassman, Nebraska Emergency Management Agency
• Simone Cohen, USACE Omaha District

Link to Presentation, Recording, and Transcript

Date: December 8, 2021

This past year, the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia both conducted their first ever Flood Awareness campaigns. Maryland’s month-long, and D.C.’s week-long efforts utilized public service announcements, social media posts, poster-ads, webinars and some limited in-person events to raise public awareness on flooding, flood risk, flood insurance and related topics. This Silver Jackets webinar will focus on the methods employed, outcomes and lessons-learned.

Presenters:

• Joshua Schnitzlein / Martin Koch - District of Columbia Department of Energy & Environment, “D.C.’s Flood Awareness Week”
• Jennifer Sparenberg – Maryland Environmental Service, “State of Maryland’s Flood Awareness Month”
• Andrew Layman – USACE Baltimore District, “D.C. Flood Awareness Event: Flood Barrier Testing”

Link to Presentation, Recording, and Transcript

Date: November 18, 2021

The National Inventory of Dams (NID) maintained and published by USACE, documents more than 90,000 dams in the U.S. and its territories. In November, USACE will be launching a new NID web site to include a modernized search interface, new data displays and additional dam safety resources. For USACE dams, it will include descriptions of the dam, benefits and risks, and planned and ongoing actions to address areas of concern. The new NID will also include inundation maps for USACE dams. USACE is sharing these maps to better help federal agencies, states, emergency managers, infrastructure owners, community leaders, business owners, and residents understand the relationship between USACE dams and the areas they impact.

Presenters:

• Michelle Carey - USACE Dam and Levee Safety Data Management Team
• Alex Ubben - USACE Dam and Levee Safety Data Management Team

Link to Presentation, Recording, and Transcript

Link to the National Inventory of Dams

Date: October 26, 2021

Risk communication involving socially vulnerable populations is a two-way process that requires engaging and understanding the needs of the community.  Learn how to enhance the effectiveness of risk messaging by creating genuine partnerships and tapping into local priorities and concerns. The webinar includes an overview of several resources that are available to assist with developing risk communication messaging with a focus on reaching socially vulnerable populations. Referenced risk communication resources are available online here.

This webinar was a collaboration with the Bridging the Equity Gap: Flood Resilience for the Whole Community webinar series. You can view all webinars in this series here.

Presenters: Dr. Nnenia Campbell - Deputy Director for the Bill Anderson Fund / Research Associate with the Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder

Link to Presentation, Recording, and Transcript

Date: September 21, 2021

To better plan for and mitigate flood risk, Illinois River communities need data computed and communicated at a structure by structure level.  Interagency Silver Jackets projects are bringing together the resources and expertise of Illinois DNR, Illinois State Water Survey, and USACE to meet this need with inundation mapping and structural damage assessments.  Available to community officials via web viewer or pdf booklet, the data can be employed to plan, promote, and justify mitigation activities and to improve flood preparedness. This collaborative effort was recognized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as the 2020 First Place Recipient in its Cooperating Technical Partners Recognition Program.

Presenters:

• Brad McVay, Illinois State Water Survey
• Glenn Heistand, Illinois State Water Survey
• Zoe Zaloudek, Illinois State Water Survey
• Terra McParland, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Office of Water Resources
• Christopher Hawes, USACE Rock Island District
• Kaileigh Scott, USACE Rock Island District

Link to Presentation, Recording, and Transcript

Date: August 19, 2021

The HUD Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) will present on its Community Resilience Toolkit, a user-friendly guide to help HUD recipients and stakeholders identify opportunities to use their CPD funding allocations to mitigate the impacts of natural related hazards. The toolkit helps recipients of CPD funds learn how current and future natural hazard risks may impact their community and actions they can take to reduce those risks, particularly among low-income and vulnerable populations. The toolkit can be downloaded at https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/HUD-Community-Resilient-Toolkit.pdf.

Presenters:

• Kevin J. Bush, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Grant Programs, HUD
• Joey Baietti, Special Assistant, HUD

Link to Presentation, Recording, and Transcript

Date: July 20, 2021

A USGS panel will brief the Silver Jackets on how to access USGS flood data for event response and planning, and update attendees with plans for improving these systems in the coming years. National and regional views of real-time streamgage flood data are provided through the new USGS National Water Dashboard with long-term plans to integrate USGS flood and other data with information from other sources. Customized subscriber alerts based on those data can be provided via USGS WaterAlert. Storm-tide and highwater mark data are provided via the USGS flood-event viewer (FEV). Site-specific flood extent data may be visualized through the USGS flood-inundation mapping (FIM) toolbox.

Moderator: Robert Mason, USGS

Presenters: Brian McCallum, Shawna Gregory, Dave Yancey, Athena Clark, and Julia Prokopec, USGS

Link to Presentation, Recording, and Transcript

Date: June 22, 2021

Join to hear an overview of emerging technologies for improving water observations. Jack and John will present short vignettes on a number of technology partnerships with NASA, CMU, USC and industry, including UAS-deployed tools to measure soil moisture, snow and groundwater, surface water velocity and depth, and low-cost, LP-WAN sensors to lower barriers to real-time monitoring of hydrologic networks.

Presenters:

• Jack Eggleston, Chief, Hydrologic Remote Sensing Branch, USGS
• Jonathan Stock, Director, USGS National Innovation Center

Link to Presentation, Recording, and Transcript

Date: June 16, 2021

The National Water Center (NWC) enables NOAA's National Weather Service, in partnership with other federal agencies and the academic community, to deliver a new generation of water information and services to the nation. These new services will improve preparedness for water-related disasters and inform high-value water decisions at the local, state and national levels. The NWC fosters scientific excellence and innovation, improving water prediction capabilities to support decisions for a water-resilient nation.

Presenters:

• Thomas Graziano, Director Office of Water Prediction, National Weather Service, NOAA
• Edward Clark, Director, National Water Center, National Weather Service, NOAA
• Dr. Fred Ogden, Chief Scientist, Office of Water Prediction, National Weather Service, NOAA

Link to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Date: May 24, 2021

Floods can happen anywhere. To anyone. At any time. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) provides flood insurance to property owners, renters and businesses. As a component of the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA), the Federal Insurance Directorate has created information to educate and inform about the NFIP.  Participation by our Federal and state partners in NFIP Marketing and Outreach campaigns can influence communities to protect themselves from financial risk associated with flood damage. This presentation will share information about how communities can be protected and recover quickly after a flood. FIMA staff will answer questions and explain why flood insurance is important, the cost of flooding, what’s covered by flood insurance, and identify helpful resources to help our partners spread the word on “How to Be FloodSmart”.

Presenters: LaToya Butler-Jones - FEMA, Federal Insurance Directorate, Marketing & Outreach Branch

Link to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Date: May 4, 2021

Every community is unique, and disasters impact every community differently. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Risk Management Directorate developed a series of toolkits for community officials, including  A Guide to Supporting Engagement and Resiliency in Rural Communities to help FEMA staff, partners and providers enhance engagement and planning with rural communities as a means to improving hazard mitigation planning and risk reduction efforts. As a part of the webinar, representatives from FEMA will walk through the process by which the Guide was developed, resources within the guide, and examples of when the tools were used successfully, as well as answer questions.

Presenters:

• Matt Buddie, FEMA Region 8
• Matt Wagner, for FEMA
• James Cullen, for FEMA

Link to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Link to A Guide to Supporting Engagement and Resiliency in Rural Communities

Date: April 21, 2021

The Missouri River and tributaries experienced severe flooding in 2019 resulting in numerous levee breaches, inundating 1.2 million acres, damaging infrastructure including farms, railroads, Interstate highways and closure of approximately 470 roads. Missouri River levee L-536, in northwest Missouri in Atchison and Holt Counties, was breached in five locations and significantly damaged. The USACE levee repair alternative analysis determined that a levee realignment around sections of severely damaged levee was a feasible repair option under Public Law 84-99, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers levee rehabilitation authority. The Atchison County Levee District (ACLD) in consultation with the impacted landowners also recognized that the levee realignment would allow more room for floodwater conveyance on the riverside, and when combined with a modern design, would benefit the community now and for future generations. Led by the ACLD and the USACE Omaha District, this project was made possible by a robust partnership of state and federal agencies and non-profit organizations. All partners contributed time, resources, and expertise.

Presenters:

• Willem Helms, USACE Headquarters
• Barbara Charry, The Nature Conservancy
• Regan Griffin,  Atchison County Levee District
• Corina Zhang, USACE Omaha District
• David Crane, USACE Omaha District

Links to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Date: March 17, 2021

Silver Jackets teams have previously leveraged this funding opportunity to initiate hundreds of interagency efforts nationwide during the past decade. Not a grant program, the interagency work promotes participation by US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) staff in small nonstructural efforts undertaken with other partners to achieve flood risk management benefits that could not be achieved by any one party alone.  The Fiscal Year 2022 Call for Proposals invites submissions from the USACE Districts, prepared in collaboration with their partners, and provides an opportunity for USACE to offer its engineering and planning expertise to assist local communities and states with nonstructural approaches to manage and reduce flood risk.    

Presenters:

• Lisa Bourget, USACE Institute for Water Resources
• Katie Sommers, Wisconsin Emergency Management
• Terry Zien, USACE St. Paul District

Link to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Date: February 2, 2021

Since the program launched in March 2017, Higher Ground has grown into the largest flood-survivor network in the country with 58 members in 21 U.S. states, plus Puerto Rico. The network is diverse, 80 percent of the chapters are led by women, 60 percent represent low-income and communities of color.

In addition to policy advocacy, Higher Ground serves as a clinic that draws upon well-tested community empowerment strategies such as grassroots community organizing, leadership training, and peer-to-peer learning. It adds specialized and highly effective science, counseling, and policy, legal, and art and communications expertise so that communities can more successfully convey the complex challenges they face and advocate for the best solutions to government officials.

Presenter: Harriet Festing, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Anthropocene Alliance

Link to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Date: January 14, 2021

The State of Florida Silver Jackets Team completed the Inland Community Resiliency Project to support the rural inland counties of Columbia and Highlands. The project included preparing a guidebook with proposed solutions to reduce identified risks and building a network of relationships between county emergency managers, state agencies and federal agencies to improve resilience. Currently scaled to achieve increased community resilience at the county level, this work also serves as a pilot project that could be applied to other rural counties in Florida and across the nation.

Presenters:

• Dan Curcio, Florida Division of Emergency Management, Bureau of Mitigation
• Marci Jackson, USACE Jacksonville District
• Melissa Reynolds, P.E., USACE Jacksonville District
• Sarah Redmond, USACE Jacksonville District

Link to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Other Materials:

• Highlands County Guidebook (pdf, 6.25MB)
• Highlands County Workbook (pdf, 10.9MB)
• Columbia County Guidebook (pdf, 4.99MB)
• Columbia County Workbook (pdf, 11.3MB)

Date: December 10, 2020

The Insurance Institute for Business Safety (IBHS), U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) have partnered to help home and business owners get the needed resources to recover and build back stronger.  Home and business owners can reduce the chance of future disaster damage when using an SBA Disaster Loan and rebuilding using IBHS’s FORTIFIED construction standards which go beyond local building codes.  Learn more about the resources available through this team to promote a more resilient community recovery. 

Presenters:

• Alejandro Contreras, Director of the Office of Preparedness, Communication and Coordination, Office of Disaster Assistance - Small Business Administration (SBA)
• Loretta Worters, Vice President, Media Relations – Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I)
• Christina Gropp, Public Affairs Manager - Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)
• Christopher Cioffi, Commercial Lines Engineer (IBHS)
• Alexandra Cary, FORTIFIED Market Development Manager (IBHS)

Link to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Date: November 17, 2020

The National Mitigation Investment Strategy's overarching goal is to improve the coordination and effectiveness of "mitigation investments," defined as risk management actions taken to avoid, reduce, or transfer risks from natural hazards, including severe weather. The Investment Strategy aims to catalyze increased innovation and investments across the whole community by focusing on implementing effective mitigation to reduce the burden on response and recovery efforts.

By using the Investment Strategy as a guide, partnerships across FEMA and with external stakeholders can magnify efforts to unify and collaboratively work towards the common goal of increasing the nation's resilience to natural hazards through more effective and efficient mitigation investment. The Federal Government can be a catalyst for mitigation investment, but it cannot be the sole solution, success requires commitment from the whole community to advance holistic resilience.

Presenter: Jamie Leigh Price, Mitigation Investment Lead for the Risk Management Directorate, Federal Insurance Mitigation Administration, FEMA HQ

Link to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Date: October 8, 2020

For decades, social scientists have sought to understand how to best communicate disaster risk and encourage households to prepare and mitigate accordingly. Despite a substantial body of research literature around these topics, information does not always make it into the hands of the practitioners who need it the most. This webinar will highlight two resources that were developed to help close this gap: a guidebook that provides evidence-based recommendations and practical examples, and an annotated bibliography that delves deeper into the relevant literature.

Presenters:

• Lori Peek, PhD, Director, Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder
• Nnenia Campbell, PhD, Research Associate, Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder

Link to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Date: September 29, 2020

The USACE has recently updated USACE policy for emergency action plans and inundation maps. The presentation will focus on this guidance for USACE owned and operated dams and how the policy will be implemented through enhancements to the National Inventory of Dams database.

Presenters:

• Jacob R. Davis, P.E., Dam Safety Program Manager, USACE Headquarters
• Jason Sheeley, GISP, Assistant Director, USACE Modeling, Mapping and Consequences Production Center
• Chris Baker, Lead, Public Awareness and Communications Team, USACE Dam and Levee Safety Programs

Link to Presentation, Recording and Transcript

Date: August 18, 2020

The Alabama Coastal Comprehensive Plan (ACCP) Dashboard provides stakeholders a comprehensive look of risk to Coastal Alabama with a focus across key stakeholder values. The goal of ACCP is to reduce vulnerabilities by providing a roadmap that increases the economic, environmental, and social resiliency of coastal Alabama for current and future generations. The presenters will provide an overview of the ACCP objectives and outline how stakeholder input was integrated with the planning process to serve as a guide for the technical team's analysis.  Technical elements of the project will be introduced along with a demonstration of apps that will be used to host analysis results and enable users to interact with project data in a meaningful way.

Presenters:

• Meredith LaDart, Planner, USACE Mobile District
• Jackie Wittman, Coastal Engineer, USACE Mobile District

Link to Recording and Transcript

Date: July 16, 2020

Please join us for an interactive webinar to learn about a suite of natural infrastructure products available from NOAA's Digital Coast. Resources highlighted will help participants get started with natural infrastructure planning, from visualizing impacts of coastal hazards and climate change, to prioritizing natural infrastructure options. It will be a great opportunity to explore some new products!

Presenter:

• Lauren Long, Coastal Conservation Specialist, NOAA Office for Coastal Management
• John Rozum, Coastal Planner, NOAA Office for Coastal Management

Link to Presentations, Recording and Transcript

Date: June 23, 2020

This webinar highlights the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Nature-Based Solutions for Coastal Highway Resilience: An Implementation Guide. The Guide is designed to help transportation practitioners understand how and where nature-based solutions can be used to improve the resilience of coastal roads and bridges. Nature-Based solutions use natural materials and processes to reduce erosion, wave damage and flood risks. Examples include conservation, restoration, or construction of beaches, dunes, marshes, mangroves, maritime forests, and reefs. The guide summarizes the potential flood-reduction benefits and co-benefits of these strategies. It follows the steps in the project delivery process, providing guidance on how to consider nature-based solutions in the planning process, how to conduct a site assessment to determine whether nature-based solutions are appropriate, key engineering and ecological design considerations, permitting approaches, construction considerations, and monitoring and maintenance strategies.

More information is available for:

• Implementation Guide
• FHWA research on Nature-Based Resilience for Coastal Highways

Presenter: Tina Hodges, Environmental Protection Specialist, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)

Link to Presentations, Recording and Transcript

Date: May 27, 2020

Many Silver Jackets teams are foregoing in-person meetings to comply with social distancing requirements. Members of the USACE Collaboration and Public Participation Center of Expertise will present a hands-on webinar about on what Silver Jackets teams can do to continue to stay engaged across the digital divide. The webinar will include principles and best practices for facilitating and participating in virtual meetings and functioning as a virtual team. This presentation is provided by the same team that brought you “Get on the Bus Gus: How to Rev up a Team and Drive it Home” in March 2019. 

Presenters:

• Andrea Carson, USACE Pittsburgh District
• Hunter Merritt, USACE Sacramento District
• Tyson Vaughan, PhD, USACE Institute for Water Resources

Link to Presentations, Recording and Transcript

Links to other resources:

• Facing Down Your Fears About Facilitating a Virtual Meeting
• Six Critical Success Factors for Running a Successful Virtual Meeting

Date: May 5, 2020

The presentation will provide an overview of lessons learned from the Nurture Nature Center's (NNC) social science research into how public and professional audiences use and respond to National Weather Service flood forecast products. The presentation will answer the following questions: How does product design, use of language, delivery and source of information lead users to make better - or worse - decisions?  and How can data be used to motivate decision-making during times of high risk and uncertainty? NNC's Executive Director Rachel Hogan Carr will provide examples from nearly a decade's worth of research, conducted in partnership with East Carolina University, with audiences in states across the country, and discuss how lessons learned could help inform other products.

Presenter: Rachel Hogan Carr, Nurture Nature Center

Link to Presentation, recording and transcript

Date: April 27, 2020

The Washington Silver Jackets Team recently completed an effort to increase the awareness, accessibility and implementation of climate resilience information into flood risk management planning around the state.

The abundance of climate-related data (sea level rise and stream flow projections, assessment tools, adaptation plan, etc.) can be overwhelming, especially for local planners and floodplain administrators. Yet they are asked to incorporate such data into their planning efforts to remain resilient to future flood risk. The WA Silver Jackets team hosted a six-part webinar series to help county- and city-level staff navigate through the resources needed to address climate resilience and also built a climate data resource database. The presentation will summarize both efforts and how they can be used to increase Washington state's resiliency to flooding in a changing climate.

Presenters:

• Travis Ball, USACE Seattle District
• Guillaume Mauger, University of Washington

Link to Presentations, recording and transcript

Date: March 18, 2020

Learn more about the CityArchRiver project and what was done to improve flooding along a 1.5-mile stretch of the Mississippi River in downtown St. Louis. The CityArchRiver project was a $380 million renovation of Gateway Arch National Park and its surrounding areas in downtown St. Louis. This was a historic partnership between the private sector and federal, state, and local government agencies. Core partners included the National Park Service, Missouri Department of Transportation, Great Rivers Greenway, Bi-State Development, Gateway Arch Park Foundation, City of St. Louis and Jefferson National Parks Association. Through a unique partnership of public and private funding, many agencies and the St. Louis community came together to change how visitors and the region experience the Gateway Arch. 

Presenters:

• Mike Ward, Superintendent, Gateway Arch National Park
• Susan Trautman, Chief Executive Officer, Great Rivers Greenway
• Ryan McClure, Executive Director, Gateway Arch Park Foundation

Link to Presentation, recording and transcript

Date: February 18, 2020

Silver Jackets teams have leveraged this funding opportunity to initiate NEARLY 450 interagency efforts since 2011. Not a grant program, the interagency work promotes participation by US Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) staff in small efforts undertaken with other partners to achieve flood risk management benefits that could not be achieved by any one party alone.  The Fiscal Year 2021 Call for Proposals invites submittals from the USACE Districts prepared in collaboration with their partners and provides an opportunity for USACE to offer its engineering and planning expertise to assist local communities and states with nonstructural approaches to manage and reduce flood risk.   

Presenters:

• Lisa Bourget, USACE Institute for Water Resources
• Manuela Johnson, Indiana Department of Homeland Security
• Stacey Underwood, USACE Baltimore District

Link to Presentation, recording and transcript

Date: February 4, 2020

Crowdsourcing, citizen science, and prize competitions are emerging open innovation techniques that are increasingly being used as force multipliers to enhance hazard science and emergency management. Dr. Liu will present various USGS projects using these techniques to detect earthquakes using Twitter data, improve coastal erosion prediction models by asking crowds to analyze aerial photos of the coast, and enhance sub-seasonal climate forecasting for water managers through a $800,000 prize competition. She will also discuss how she helped FEMA develop a Crowdsourcing Unit that leverages digital volunteers and crowd sourced data from the private sector to enhance situational awareness in response to major hurricanes.

Presenter: Sophia Liu, PhD, Innovation Specialist - U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Science and Decision Center

Link to Recording and transcript

Date: January 22, 2020