New Understanding of Disaster Preparedness & Recovery in Mississippi

Following Hurricane Katrina, then-Governor Haley Barbour created the state’s Disaster Recovery Division and appointed Jon Mabry as its chief operations officer. Many lessons have been learned in the recovery process in the 7 years since Katrina directly affected some one million Mississippians, nearly one-third of the state’s population. In a recent interview with Emergency Management Magazine, Mr. Mabry shared his experience on the challenges, successes, and future of the disaster recovery process in Mississippi.

Some important issues discussed in the article include the challenge and importance of replacing the housing stock in order to return the workforce and jumpstart the recovery, the awarding of contracts with performance requirements and deadlines to ensure victims receive timely and effective assistance, and end-to-end accountability for all personnel involved in order to ensure responsible and efficient use of taxpayer monies.

http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Hurricane-Katrina-Lessons-Learned-Mississippis-Recovery.html?page=1&;