On the Front Line of Disasters, County Leaders Look to Boost Resilience
Roundtable participants seek to build on success and call for more intergovernmental collaboration
Extreme weather impacts are felt at the local level first, something 3,143 county governments throughout the United States know all too well. According to the National Association of Counties (NACo), in 2023 alone, more than 25% of counties experienced a federally declared major disaster, events that ran the gamut from wildfires and floods to drought and tornadoes.
County governments are often focal points for both immediate response and longer-term efforts to ensure communities are better prepared for the next disaster. The increasing frequency and intensity of weather-related disasters led NACo and The Pew Charitable Trusts to launch a series of roundtable discussions with county officials and staff on resilience, including one earlier this year.
The first roundtable focused on challenges communities face before, during, and after disasters; the second roundtable sought to define “capacity” and to effectively build it within county governments.
At the final event in February, attendees identified the following three areas that officials at all levels of government must address to reduce long-term disaster risk.
Streamline access to federal disaster mitigation, preparedness, and relief funding
County officials say accessing federal disaster relief funds can be daunting. Cumbersome grant applications and administrative processes may result in long waits for funding or reimbursements—a particularly acute issue in under-resourced communities. According to NACo, 73% of counties that have experienced a disaster in the past 10 years have outstanding federal reimbursement claims, with 28% of counties reporting reimbursement processing times exceeding six years.
Roundtable participants recommended that the federal government simplify funding streams, such as by using artificial intelligence to help communities identify and leverage funding. Participants also said states should be helping counties secure federal funding and develop comprehensive resilience plans. States should also put in place dedicated state disaster relief funds, which can support local governments when they’re ineligible for—or denied—federal funding.
Measure and address economic risks of disasters
As disaster costs and frequency have grown, obtaining and affording insurance has become tougher, including for county governments. To address this, roundtable participants recommended the development of a centralized, parcel-level risk database, managed by a neutral third party, which could in turn be used to inform planning and development decisions. Participants also suggested expanding the use of catastrophe modeling—akin to hurricane modeling currently used in states, including Florida—to address additional types of disaster risk, such as wildfire.
Participants also called on states to provide more funds to help property owners retrofit homes—such as Alabama is doing through its Strengthen Alabama Homes program—and to ensure property owners get insurance discounts for those retrofits.
Ensure resilience in land-use planning and development
Lax or ill-informed regulations often lead to land-use decisions, such as building in flood plains, that increase disaster risk. To address this challenge, participants recommended promoting the use of conservation or development easements, transfer of development rights, and voluntary buyout programs. These protective measures can provide direct resilience benefits—for example, through enhanced stormwater absorption—and provide opportunities to protect and restore vital ecosystems.
Success stories
Roundtable participants cited partnerships across the local, county, state, and federal levels as key to successful resilience efforts. Here are three examples of such partnerships.
- Kansas—In a state known for tornadoes, wildfires are often a bigger threat, with Kansas ranking among the top 10 states in acres burned. To counter this threat, the state established a Wildfire Task Force, which includes local, county, and state representatives, landowners, and other stakeholders. In November 2023, the task force delivered recommendations to the state legislature on how state and local governments can increase wildfire resilience.
- South Carolina—In 2023, the South Carolina Office of Resilience published its first Strategic Statewide Resilience and Risk Reduction Plan, which highlighted the need to conserve land as a flood resilience strategy. More than $300 million in federal and state funds have been set aside to implement various aspects of the plan, including voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties.
- King County, Washington—In 2020, King County—home to Seattle—released a five-year Strategic Climate Action Plan integrating disaster resilience goals into day-to-day county operations and community engagement activities. It emphasized sustainability, resilience, climate equity, and economic development, and called for the establishment of a county climate office and the King County-Cities Climate Collaboration, a partnership of local governments working to address wildfire, flooding, and other threats.
Collaboration is critical to build disaster resilience
Throughout the roundtable, the participants called for open communication and collaboration across jurisdictions and levels of government. Gregory Nelson, director of government affairs in Coconino County, Arizona, said, “It will take each of us working together across boundaries to ultimately push some of these things forward with policy change. We are all facing similar problems, so we need to work together and leverage resources across localities, across states, and across federal agencies.”
By embracing forward-looking goals, county leaders can work together to improve resilience and form partnerships to advocate for improved access to resources to build safer communities for their residents.
Download NACo’s full report “Findings from the 2024 Intergovernmental Roundtable on Disaster Resilience.”
Mathew Sanders is a senior officer with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ U.S. Conservation project and Andrea Snyder is a senior associate with Pew’s managing fiscal risks project.
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