Out of the Ruins

FEMA branches out into a new service- helping storm-torn communities plan their futures.

One of the best days in Mark Peters' life came just 48 hours after one of the worst.

First, the worst: On May 4, 2003, a storm system moving across the middle of the country turned violent. It spat hail, whipped up winds and spawned more than 80 tornadoes that ripped across Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee.

The twisters turned houses into splintered wrecks, scattered trees and telephone poles and killed dozens of people. Pierce City, Mo., a town of 1,500 where Peters serves as part-time mayor, nearly was wiped out when a tornado roared down the main street. "Our entire downtown-end to end-was destroyed," he says. "The tornado blew off the bandstand roof like a Frisbee, and it landed right in the middle of the library."

Two days later, something happened that seemed almost a miracle. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency contacted Peters and offered to organize an interdisciplinary team to help Pierce City make the most of recovery programs and to develop a comprehensive plan for its future. "That was one of the best days of my life," Peters says.

If not for FEMA, Peters would have faced the prospect of guiding his community through a maze of state and federal programs. "We had a tremendous number of offers of help," he says. But there were too few local officials to research assistance options, coordinate rebuilding projects and file grant applications to take advantage of all those offers. The FEMA recovery experts "became a great, big administrative team at the city's service, and a great, big lobbying team at the city's service," Peters says.

'Something Extra'

In the days following the 2003 tornado outbreak, disaster recovery experts from all levels of government turned their attention to the areas that were hardest hit. The immediate needs included searching for missing people, restoring utilities, and providing medical care and temporary housing.

Dick Hainje, a FEMA regional director, surveyed the damage by helicopter. Most of the buildings in the historic downtown were brick structures dating from the late 1880s. Virtually all of them suffered fatal damage. Forty of the town's 60 antique shops, flea markets and other businesses had to be shut down. Sixty miles north, the town of Stockton also was devastated.

The situation reminded him of Spencer, S.D., another small town, after it practically was demolished by a tornado in 1998. Residents there received assistance from federal and state agencies and other sources, yet Spencer never fully recovered. "Having seen that town not fully rebuilt, I realized there was more to it," Hainje says.

In a federal disaster area, FEMA typically administers three recovery programs: individual assistance, public assistance and hazard mitigation. These provide financial help for medical costs and other individual needs, rebuilding homes and community infrastructure and for building disaster-resistant structures.

But in Pierce City and Stockton, Hainje and others set out to do something beyond the agency's traditional programs. They wanted to give storm-torn towns comprehensive help with bigger-picture issues: housing, transportation, infrastructure, job creation and more. At first it seemed they would have to start from scratch. "We had a committee that was trying to come up with good ideas . . . but then I became aware that [FEMA] had done this before," Hainje says.

Man With a Plan

In 1999, Hurricane Floyd flooded Princeville, N.C., the first town incorporated by black citizens after the Civil War. Because of Princeville's history and the extreme damage (all the buildings were underwater), President Clinton created a special council with representatives from a dozen federal agencies to help the town recover. FEMA sent Federal Coordinating Officer Brad Gair to bring together the strategy for Princeville.

Working closely with residents, Gair and a team of architects, engineers, city planners, economists, housing specialists and other experts developed a plan for the town's future. The group identified high-priority recovery projects, such as building a new town hall and converting the old one into a museum, and presented all the information needed to apply for grants.

The federal team's guidance has been critical, says Samuel Knight, the town manager. "We had about 40 people from FEMA assisting us with recovery," he says. "They decided they were going to make things happen in Princeville." Work remains, but all the residents are now back in permanent homes-many of them brand new-and the town has its first park. "The future is unlimited for us," Knight says.

When Hainje heard about Gair's work, he asked him to help in Pierce City and Stockton. Gair set out to apply what he had learned in Princeville to this new challenge. The centerpiece became an intensive planning period. After a disaster, communities typically work with consultants for six to nine months to create a master plan. "We developed what we call speed planning," Gair says. "We wanted to take that process and compress it into 30 days."

In order to do so, FEMA brings in 10 to 15 experts from federal agencies and departments (including Commerce, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and others) plus private consultants. They are "people who can come in and look at massive destruction and have a vision for how the community can be better than it was before the disaster," Gair says. They work long hours and live in the community for a month, collecting input from residents and designing a set of prioritized recovery projects.

Shortening the planning period to a month hastens recovery, but Gair doesn't advocate speed at all costs. "The opportunity is to actually have a planning process and think about it," he says. In Stockton, for example, residents chose to rebuild with brick rather than slapping up buildings with a material that's less expensive and faster to use. In Pierce City, an architect on the recovery team designed a new city hall inspired by a photograph of the old Pierce City train station, which had been demolished 20 years earlier. It sets the tone of the architecture for the new downtown.

Gair further refined the planning process last year in Utica, Ill., after it, too, nearly was destroyed by a tornado, which killed eight of the city's 800 residents. "Everybody knew all eight people, so the community was physically and emotionally devastated," Gair says. Together with the recovery team, community members designed a plan that could attract tourists visiting a nearby state park. By rerouting a state highway a few blocks out of the way, Utica will have a quieter downtown for outdoor cafes and other attractions.

It Takes a Village

FEMA's Hainje remembers the look of relief on Mayor Peters' face when he offered to help with Pierce City's long-term recovery. "What he was happy about was the promise that we would work creatively with them," Hainje says, not that FEMA simply would take over. "He already had obviously intended that he would commit himself to this effort." Even with the federal team's leadership, creating a long-range plan requires the dedication of local officials and residents.

"I always imagined what the last Pierce City Council meeting looked like before the tornado, because they probably did a building permit on occasion," Hainje says. "Suddenly they had to do 400 to 500 building permits, and they had to figure out how they were going to do street improvements and utility improvements." The city had to set building restrictions, pass ordinances, establish zoning regulations-all of which required tough decisions.

One of the most difficult choices was to raze the historic buildings that had not been completely demolished. The structures were still standing, but the residents determined they couldn't be repaired. They had to design a new town from the ground up. "We just aren't going to be a town of the 1800s anymore," Peters says. "Our thrust is to create a very walkable, livable place."

The FEMA-led team held three town hall meetings-a system that had become an essential part of recovery planning elsewhere. They asked residents to write comments on Post-it notes and stick them to presentations that outlined potential projects. They also used an electronic voting system to get an accurate assessment of audience members' opinions. "They never came in and dictated," Peters says. "I thought that was key to FEMA's success here."

The community's involvement has a downside, though. Local officials are responsible for securing funding for most of the projects. Some will take years to finance, others may never become reality.

At the end of the planning month, the recovery team presents the community with a document Gair calls a "walking grant application." The community can "literally tear out a page and send it in," he says, comparing it to a Denny's menu. "You see a picture of what you're going to order, you see the cost of it and you see a good description of what you're getting." FEMA also assigns a long-term recovery manager to work with the community for a year following the disaster.

But Utica Mayor Fred Esmond says that even with this help, securing grants has been slow and frustrating. "We still need the high-level FEMA people," he says. "They are the ones who know the right people to call. They could probably get something done." And the timing of Utica's tornado couldn't have been worse, Esmond says. Shortly after FEMA experts had finished the town's long-range plan, they turned their attention hundreds of miles away to their biggest recovery project yet.

Real Test

"Our real test came in Florida last year," Gair says. On Aug. 13, 2004, Hurricane Charley brought chaos to Charlotte, De-Soto and Hardee counties in southwestern Florida. "We were tasked with going in and doing [recovery planning] for three counties simultaneously while more hurricanes were still coming on shore," he recalls. And when Hurricane Ivan slammed into the Florida Panhandle a month later, FEMA officials began the planning process for Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, too.

In southwestern Florida, the recovery team took a new approach, looking at the counties as a region. A river that runs through all three could draw tourists, and the recovery team saw opportunities for regional branding and marketing. The counties also share a highway, which would be widened under the plans. In Santa Rosa County, the recovery team designed community centers that would include business incubator space. "The process has proven to be unique for every community," says Steve Castaner, a FEMA long-term recovery specialist who will help the southwestern counties put their plans into action. "Florida is a little different because we're working with communities that have more staff resources, more political resources and more financial resources." The state agencies have played a significant role.

Still, FEMA's planning help was essential, says Tracy Suber, special projects coordinator for the Florida Department of Community Affairs. "This stretched our resources beyond what we could have done," she says. "FEMA had a really well-shaped model for doing long-term recovery, which they continue to improve."

In fact, FEMA's hitherto informal recovery planning pro-cess was included in the Homeland Security De-partment's National Re-sponse Plan, which took effect in April. Gair and others are working on an assessment tool to help determine which communities need sweeping assistance, and on a recovery guide ("long-term recovery for dummies," Gair jokes) to assist communities in managing the process on their own.

Much work remains for the communities FEMA has helped with long-range planning. "The planning process is one thing, but the implementation is another," says Todd Davison, FEMA's mitigation division director for the region that includes Florida. "By the nature of the projects, some were immediate and some were in the five- to 10-year range."

The mood among officials working on hurricane recovery seems optimistic. "The plans express the communities' visions for their future," Florida's Suber says. "What's going to make them effective is the community partnership that came out of the planning process."