Current Projects
California Emerging Professionals Flood Risk Education and Outreach
The California Emerging Professionals Flood Risk Education and Outreach project supports outreach efforts targeted at educating floodplain management and emergency management professionals who are looking for opportunities to strengthen both hard and soft skillsets as it relates to their position, improving their ability to reduce flood risk across CA by building local capacity, increasing awareness and encouraging a vision of flood resiliency. This effort includes support to the 2022 Watershed University Summit, support to California Flood Preparedness Week, and additional workshops specifically designed for emerging professionals.
The City of Sacramento held its 2022 Highwater Jamboree on October 15 at Garcia Bend Park in the Picket neighborhood. The annual event, held in-person for the first time since 2019, drew a great turnout from the local community. Sacramento District employees, along with numerous state, municipal and first-responder agencies participated, offering interactive displays that drew attendees eager to learn - and take advantage of cool, free giveaways that included low-flow showerheads, food-scrap buckets and, of course, Bobber the Water Safety Dog swag.
Flood After Fire California Toolkit
The Flood After Fire California Toolkit is a collection of tools, methods, and other resources – grouped into chronologically distinct periods of a flood after fire response timeline – to help assess the risks associated with flooding and debris flow after a fire. It includes appendices and case studies.
Flood After Fire California Toolkit Resources
Multi-Hazard Disaster Outreach, Awareness, and Education
This proposal supports outreach efforts targeted at educating other agencies, government officials, community leaders, and the general public on the risks associated with flooding, flood after fire, and dam safety in California. The need to communicate dam safety topics, including the understanding of inundation maps, has become increasingly important. California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) will lead the efforts at communicating California's flood and other related risks.
Initiatives under the project may include:
- Watershed University
- California Flood Preparedness Week
- High Water Mark sign initiatives
- Events at children's museums and science centers, and county, state and local fairs
- Other flood and emergency preparedness events.
A new effort under this project proposal may be to increase assistance provided to local jurisdictions to better understand FEMA's Community Rating System (CRS) and how they can raise their rating.
Emergency Response Functional Exercise
This proposal will build upon an earlier (2017) table top exercise which featured the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), DWR's Flood Operations Center teams, the National Weather Service, and other partners. This proposal will address communication challenges identified during recent high water events. The outcome of the functional exercise will strengthen the emergency response communication and coordination, particularly using CAP real-time data and photos during a large scale regional disaster to aid the immediate decision-making for the emergency response effort.