The Colorado Disaster Recovery Plan and companion Colorado Disaster Housing Plan are in the final review stages and will be released upon executive-level approval. The Recovery Plan establishes a coordinated process for supporting community recovery efforts by defining state agency roles and responsibilities, providing guidelines for carrying out state-level recovery functions, and outlining the process for obtaining assistance from federal, nonprofit and private sector partners.

Like the new National Disaster Recovery Framework, the Colorado Disaster Recovery Plan is built around Recovery Support Functions (RSFs), which have a longer duration than Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) and are focused on more specialized tasks requiring technical expertise, such as debris management, economic redevelopment and environmental rehabilitation. RSFs provide a coordination point for ongoing technical and financial assistance to affected communities as well as a process for collaborating with recovery partners, including local and federal officials, businesses, volunteer/nonprofit organizations and faith-based groups.

Another concept central to the new plan involves formation of a State Recovery and Mitigation Task Force to provide long-term oversight of State efforts and resource support for RSF activities. The primary roles of the Task Force are to maintain close coordination with affected communities, facilitate assistance from federal agencies, collaborate with nonprofit and private sector partners, and to develop a strategy for supporting local recovery goals and achieving state-level recovery objectives.

The Colorado Disaster Housing Plan provides an integrated framework to support post-sheltering housing needs generated by large-scale disaster events. The plan focuses on support of local efforts to provide interim housing solutions to displaced residents by identifying potential housing resources (public, private, nonprofit) and outlining a sequence of actions that maximizes the housing assistance available for disaster survivors.

A release date for each of the plans will be announced in the near future.

-Bob Wold