CRP Events

Notice of Online Archive

As of February 2018, this website is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and archival purposes only. For questions regarding page contents, please contact us.

October 26-27th Panel Meeting Slides and Webcast Recording Available

Thank you to everyone who attended the October 26-27, 2017 Community Resilience Panel meeting in Minneapolis, MN. The agenda from the meeting can be seen here.

The slides presented during the plenary session on the morning of October 26th, 2017 are available below (click here for a recording of the webcast):

The slides presented in the plenary session on October 27th, 2017 are available below (due to technical difficulties, there is no webcast recording for these sessions):

New Cosponsor and Liaison Join the Community Resilience Panel

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Academies) joined as the first non-agency cosponsor of the Community Resilience Panel for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems. In addition, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) appointed a liaison to the Panel on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense.

The Panel, which first met in November 2015, was an independent organization devoted to reducing barriers to community resilience – the capacity to prepare for anticipated hazards, adapt to changing conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions. The Panel had over 350 volunteers, ranging from community and emergency planners to utility managers and insurance industry representatives.

Panel tasks included identifying gaps in policies, standards and codes that impede community resilience, and developing consistent definitions and metrics that enable communication and cooperation across sectors. The Panel also worked to better understand the impact of dependencies and raised awareness of “cascading effects” that result from interacting failures among infrastructure systems, such as when the loss of power interrupts water service.

In becoming a cosponsor, the National Academies joined six federal cosponsors:

  • National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST);
  • Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Economic Resilience;
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA);
  • Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA);
  • DHS Office of Infrastructure Protection; and
  • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

NIST provided funding support in the early phases of the Panel.

Cosponsor and liaison organizations conducted activities that assisted communities working to improve their resilience. Through the Office of Special Projects, the Academies formed the ResilientAmerica Roundtable which helps communities and the nation build resilience to extreme events, save lives, and reduce the physical and economic costs of disasters. Pilot projects were conducted by the Academies in four cities: Cedar Rapids, IA, Charleston, SC, Seattle, WA, and Tulsa, OK, bringing together stakeholders to identify resilience issues and develop solutions. Also, an Academies committee conducted a study on effective ways to measure the resilience of a community to natural hazards and other disruptions and will identify knowledge gaps, research directions, and approaches that could be useful to a range of communities.

The USACE has long-incorporated resilience into its water-resource projects and delivers resilient solutions as part of its infrastructure-oriented mission. A current initiative seeks to update USACE standards and criteria to reflect the most current risk-informed decision-making practices for improved project resilience and to provide greater support to community resilience locally and through national policies. This initiative applies across the USACE at the project, system, and community levels.

The EPA is responsible for improving the security and resilience of our nation’s drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. EPA provides tools, guides, and training to help utilities prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate natural and human-made disasters. At the community level, the EPA maintains an Inventory of EPA’s Tools for Enhancing Community Resilience to Disasters, has held workshops to explore scientific concepts for building an index of indicators for community environmental resilience to natural or human-caused disasters, and collaborates with DHS to help communities hit by disasters rebuild in ways that protect the environment, create long-term economic prosperity, and enhance neighborhoods.

March 9-10th Panel Meeting Slides and Webcast Recording Available

Thank you to everyone who attended the March 9-10, 2017 Community Resilience Panel meeting in Miami, FL.

The slides presented during the plenary session on the morning of March 9th are available below (click here for a recording of the webcast from the March 9th morning plenary session):

The recorded webcast of the afternoon plenary session on March 9th can be found here.

The slides presented during the plenary sessions on March 10th are available at the links below (click here for a recording of the webcast from March 10th plenary session):

Congratulations to the New Panel Leadership!

About half the Community Resilience Panel’s leadership positions open each Fall. This staggers the terms of the Panel leadership positions.

The first nomination and elections process for the Panel took place during Fall 2016. The nominees selected for the open leadership positions can be seen here. Elections were not needed because there was only one nominee for each of electable positions. The Panel Chair appointed the standing committee leadership positions (chairs and vice-chairs) from the nominations received.

For a full list of the Panel leadership, click here.

Charter and Bylaws Amendment Passed by Panel

The Community Resilience Panel passed an amendment to its Charter and Bylaws in November 2016 to make the following operational changes to the Panel process:

  • The Coordinating Committee will vote on external documents (i.e., those developed outside the Panel) proposed for addition to the Resilience Knowledge Base. External documents will not require the entire Panel’s review since many of the documents have already been reviewed through other processes (e.g., journal articles, government agency documents, etc.)
  • Documents developed by the Panel will still require an affirmative vote of the Panel to be included in the RKB.

For more information on the amendment, including a summary of the voting results, go to the Charter and Bylaws page.

September 21-22nd Panel Meeting Slides and Plenary Session Recording Available

Thank you to everyone who attended the September 21-22, 2016 Community Resilience Panel meeting in Fort Collins, CO.

The slides presented during the September 21st plenary sessions are available below (click here. Due to technical difficulties experienced during the meeting, the recording does not have sound from 2:03:06 to 2:23:53.):

The slides presented during the September 22nd plenary session are available below:

Slides from April 4-5th Panel Meeting Available

Thank you to everyone who attended the April 4-5, 2016 Community Resilience Panel Meeting in Portland, OR.

The slides presented during the April 4th plenary sessions are available at the links below (click here for a recording of the webcast from the April 4th, 2016 morning plenary session):

The slides presented during the April 5th plenary sessions are available at the links below (click here for a recording of the webcast from the April 5th, 2016 morning plenary session):

Presentations were also provided during each of the standing committee meetings on April 4th, 2016. The slides from these presentations are available at the links below: