With winds ripping at 160 miles per hour and damages estimated at $25 billion, how does a town bounce back from a disaster?
For the resilient residents of Port St. Joe, Fla., Hurricane Michael’s 2018 impact on their small-town community will never be forgotten. However, those working in the Florida Resilient Cities Program (FRC) are aiming to make sure the town is better equipped to handle the next catastrophic event.
Due in part to Hurricane Michael and with financial support from the Jesse Ball DuPont Fund, FRC was formed in July 2019 within the University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning. A collaborative group made up of members from DCP’s Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER), Shimberg Center for Housing Studies and the Center for Landscape Conservation Planning, the program’s mission is to help communities across Florida develop the capacity to be more prepared for and more resilient to increased risk.
“This program goes hand-in-hand with the ‘One DCP’ vision of Dean Anumba,” Associate Professor and FRC Program Director Jeff Carney said. “In our first year, the program brought together faculty and students from nearly every discipline in the college and many across the university. This interdisciplinary work is a prime example of how our college can make a difference in Florida and the world.”