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FEMA Region IX hosts local workshop at Army Reserve

There was a National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF) Stakeholder Engagement Workshop yesterday morning at the local US Army Reserve conference room, conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Federal Disasters Recovery Coordinators.

“The National Disaster Recovery Framework is all about a structure and an organization that has been created and presented to allow for better easier access to Federal Programs during the recovery from a major or catastrophic event,” said FEMA Region IX Federal Disaster Recovery Coordinator (FDRC) Stephen M. DeBlasio 

“It is a national framework. It is not just about FEMA or the federal agencies, but it is about the national organizations, state governments, territorial governments and local communities and how they will organize that will match up against our organizational structure, which would lend itself to enhanced collaboration and communication and easier access to Federal Programs,” explained DeBlasio.

He went on to say that the NDRF was signed in September of 2011 by President Obama and it was a document that was vetted thoroughly with all Stake-holders, state and local partners, private sector, faith based non-profit organizations and the general public.

“My goal of this one day ‘socialization of the framework’ workshop was to explain this to the American Samoa Government and other Stake-holders here in the territory and to actually be somewhat of a stepping stone towards implementing the concepts and principals contained within the NDRF at the local level here in American Samoa,” he explained.

He said that the NDRF calls for the Federal Government to create new positions with these positions being called Federal Disaster Recovery Coordinators, which is the position that DeBlasio holds for FEMA Region IX, whose head office is in Oakland, California. Region IX includes the states of California, Nevada, Arizona and all of the South Pacific Islands including Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

According the overview of the NDRF, it provides guidance that enables effective recovery support to disaster-impacted state, local, Tribe and Territorial jurisdictions. It also focuses on how to best restore, redevelop and revitalize the health, social, economic, natural and environmental welfare of the community, to make a more resilient nation