Floods can be devastating and costly for a community. Listed below are some resources that can help you prepare, mitigate, and respond to flooding in your community:

Local Mitigation Planning Handbook

This handbook from the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) was designed as a tool for local governments to use to develop or update an emergency mitigation plan.

Green Infrastructure Guide for Water Management

If you discover during the flood planning process that you need to update your water infrastructure, this guide offers tips on how to make your system more efficient.

Stormwater Management

This blog post from the ICMA Blog outlines additional resources to help you improve your community’s stormwater system.

FEMA App

Encouraging your residents to download the FEMA app will provide them with automatic reminders to do simple tasks that can help them mitigate the effects of a flood or other disaster on their family.

Flood Hazard Management Planning

The Municipal Research and Services Center, a nonprofit organization supporting the success of local government in the state of Washington, published this article, which identifies resources on flood hazard management planning.

Flood Safety Graphics

FEMA created these easily shared images for local leaders to use to inform residents about how to stay safe during a flood.

National Preparedness Month (NPM)

NPM takes place in September every year, and it’s a great time to update/review current flood response plans and plan activities to help ensure your citizens are prepared. Ready.gov also has a complete social media toolkit to help you get the word out.

Prepare Your Organization for a Hurricane Playbook

A free resource created by FEMA for households and organizations to discuss and practice plans and safety measures to improve resilience for specific disasters.

PODCAST: Fighting the Threat of Climate Change and Rising Sea Levels

In this episode of Local Gov Life, ICMA member, chief resiliency officer, and assistant city manager of Miami Beach, Susanne Torriente, sits down with ICMA to give us a snapshot of Miami Beach's current infrastructure, discusses how residents take part in the fight against climate change, and provides great insight for other local governments planning to build rising sea-level resiliency programs in their community.

Leading Edge Research: Leadership Before, During, and After a Crisis

Crises can happen anytime, anywhere. Prepare your community for disaster with this ICMA report which captures the ideas, feelings, and stories of the professional managers who were involved in different crises. By analyzing their leadership skills and techniques, professional managers can adopt promising practices in crisis leadership.

Leading Edge Research: Disaster Recovery Essentials

Important takeaways from managers’ experiences in eight recovery topics. Each includes a set of related questions to help other managers begin to assess and improve their own capacity to lead a community through recovery.

And be sure to check out two popular ICMA bestsellers: Emergency Management: Principles and Practice for Local Government, 2nd Edition and Managing Fire and Emergency Services. These comprehensive textbooks provide state-of-the-practice resources regarding local government emergency management organization, policy, and implementation.