Community Disaster Management Assets: A Case Study of the Farm Community in Sussex County, Delaware

While government mandates and programs continue to expand to meet the increasing challenges of disaster management, there is growing recognition that government cannot do it all alone. This has led to a quest to better understand local capacities, through partnerships with the private sector and volunteer organizations but also in relation to individual citizens. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) recent Whole Community initiative constitutes a policy shift towards more local engagement and responsibility. However, before devising strategies to better engage and support various actors, the nature of their disaster management resources needs to be more clearly understood. What disaster management resources do communities supply? This case study examined the assets of one community group, the farm community in Sussex County, Delaware. The conceptual framework was based on a community asset approach, which currently recognizes eight types of community capital and is comprised of active, inactive, positive, and negative resources. The study found a striking discrepancy between actually used and perceived community resources. Farm community resources were primarily used for implementation activities during disaster preparedness. The types of resources used fell into three broad categories: equipment/ supplies; experience/lessons learned; and access to other community and professional networks. The findings highlighted the use of four community capitals—human, social, physical, financial—and the existence of active, inactive, negative, and positive resources. Tools currently employed to register community resources, such as the National Incident Management System (NIMS) resource inventory management for rural communities, are designed for professional emergency services but do not recognize the full range of potentially relevant community assets.