Introduction

Developing a Plan

Alberta has experienced numerous disasters over the last century, including wildfires, overland flooding, tornadoes, rockslides and more. We know from experience that post-disaster community recovery can be complex and lead to significant stress, and that one of the best ways to reduce risks and increase community resilience is by developing an all-hazards recovery plan, before a disaster occurs.

The Town of High River’s recovery experience following the 2013 Southern Alberta Flood was the catalyst for their commissioning of the Municipal Recovery Plan Toolkit. This toolkit is intended to support municipal elected officials, public servants and emergency management and resilience professionals as they plan, collaborate and develop this all-hazards, community-specific, pre-disaster recovery contingency plan (PDR Contingency Plan).

To support pre-event disaster recovery planning and post-event recovery management, the Municipal Recovery Plan Toolkit offers five (5) municipal recovery guides, a comprehensive resource database and multiple facilitator training packages. The toolkit incorporates disaster recovery academia, international best-practices, lessons learned and NOR-EX Engineering Ltd’s knowledge and experience surrounding operationalizing recovery. Demonstrating the strength of municipalities-helping- municipalities, these learnings, gathered from various municipal focus groups, served to improve and complement the advice contained within these guides.