Mitigation insights from emergency managers on working with stakeholders.

Emergency managers have the important responsibility of planning and implementing mitigation policies and programs to reduce losses to life and property. To accomplish these goals, they must use limited time and resources to ensure the communities they serve have adequately mitigated against potential disasters. As a result, it is common to collaborate and coordinate with a wide variety of partner agencies and community organizations. While it is well established that strengthening relationships and increasing familiarity improve coordination, this article advances that narrative by providing direct insights on the ways a select group of local, state, and federal emergency managers view relationships with other mitigation stakeholders. Using insights from a 1-day workshop hosted at the University of Delaware to gather information from mitigation stakeholders, this article provides a discussion of commonalities and challenges workshop participants identified with other stakeholder groups. These insights can inform other emergency managers about potential collaborators and coordination opportunities with similar stakeholders in their own communities.

Capturing Disruptions to Food Availability After Disasters: Assessing the Food Environment Following Hurricanes Florence and María.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to describe the results of food environment assessments completed after Hurricane Florence in North Carolina (2018) and Hurricane María in Puerto Rico (2017), and provide recommendations for assessing disaster food environments. METHODS: Adapted structured observation protocols were used to conduct rapid assessments of the availability, price, and quality of specific foods in retail markets. RESULTS: In both settings, unhealthful food items (soda, chips, fruit-flavored drinks) and milk were widely available and at lower prices than domestic averages. The adapted instrument in Puerto Rico allowed for documentation of greater availability of canned items compared with fresh or frozen foods. In both settings, researchers noted the inability of the instrument to document items that are important to assess postdisaster: ready-to-heat and ready-to-eat foods; food preparation facilities and supplies; hygiene supplies; and empty shelf-space. CONCLUSIONS: The instruments, despite their limitations, were able to capture food availability issues in postdisaster environments. Future instrument adaptation is necessary to capture availability of all major food groups, healthful and unhealthful options, shelf-stable, ready-to-eat, and ready-to-heat foods versus other formats (fresh, frozen), and cooking and hygiene supplies.