What is Long-Term community recovery?

Long-term community recovery is not about travel trailers, hotel/motel programs or reimbursement checks. Those are all part of the short-term disaster response that attempts to get life in storm-affected areas back to normal as quickly as possible.

In contrast, LTCRis the process of re-establishing a healthy, functioning community that can sustain itself over many years. It attempts to capture local peoples? vision for their community?s future, and then develops a plan that includes the practical priorities and funding ideas to make that vision possible.

Following are examples of long-term recovery activities:

? Using newfound knowledge to avoid rebuilding in the floodplain or under flood elevations

? Developing permanent housing to replace homes destroyed by a storm

? Encouraging improvements to revitalize a downtown to generate jobs and a viable economy

? Building a bridge wider than before to ensure better storm evacuation

? Establishing daily practices that ensure the community doesn?t make the same mistakes over again

? Encouraging new levels of cooperation among the people and groups who can make all this happen

Long-term recovery is the process of rebuilding smarter to make the community stronger and better able to withstand the next disaster.

For this process to succeed, it is imperative to gather the input of Louisiana residents. An extensive public involvement program is being conducted to ensure that those who must implement the recovery plan have a hand in its design.