The answer to the title question is a definite yes. The April issue of Public Management (PM) and the article “Can Resiliency Be Learned,” written by Thomas Wieczorek, director of ICMA’s Center for Public Safety Management, shows how it can be done with collaboration, know-how, and hard work.

Planning, the author explains, should help minimize the impact of each hazard a community faces, with carefully designed plans of what will happen should pre-crisis efforts be inadequate to deal with the hazard.

Wieczorek sums up the article by pointing out that “Resilient communities don’t wait for the event but, rather, have planned for it and thus the response becomes almost routine. It is that distinction that results in the distinction of how communities emerge from disaster.”

For more information on community risk assessments included in the article, along with a list of organizational resources, read the April PM.