As extreme weather events become more frequent, communities face growing risks to their health, safety, and daily life. Building community resilience—the ability of a community to prepare for, withstand, and recover from these challenges—is critical.
The Guidebook for Community Resilience offers practical, actionable steps that help communities prepare for disasters, stay protected during emergencies, and recover more quickly afterward. This Guidebook draws inspiration from cities and all around the world and aims to be widely applicable for all communities seeking to build resilience. The focus is on providing you and your neighborhood with the tools needed to keep each other safe, and to survive, adapt and thrive in the face of a changing climate.
Community resilience is built by neighbors, businesses, place-based organizations, and local governments working together. This guidebook focuses on four specific audiences, each having a unique role to play in building community resilience. A section is devoted to each of the following groups: (1) Neighbors, (2) Businesses, and (3) Place-Based Organizations, while recommendations on how local governments can support these actors are included throughout.
The guidebook is split up into three main sections for Neighbors, Businesses, and Place-Based Organizations.
Each section consists of:
- Strategies and actions with corresponding illustrations
- Strategies for local governments to support community-level efforts
- Real world examples and additional resources specific to each of the three groups and local governments
- A takeaway checklist of strategies that can printed separately and distributed to community members