State of Florida Silver Jackets Team Charter

This Charter establishes and formalizes the expectations for implementation of the Silver Jackets Team for the State of Florida. This interagency team is an implementation sub-committee of the State of Florida Mitigate FL Working Group deicated to creating a collaborative environment to bring together Federal, State, and local partners to develop and implement solutions to flood risk management problems. This Charter is a living document and can be adapted throughout this initiative. This Charter will be reviewed annually by the core member agencies and may be revised at any time per the consent of the core member agencies.

Vision Statement

A collaborative effort to develop comprehensive and sustainable solutions to Florida's flood hazards.

Mission Statement

As an intergovernmental team of federal, state, and local agencies, Silver Jackets will provide opportunities to work collectively on flood management issues to:

• Identify and prioritize actions to reduce the threat and vulnerability of flooding in the State of Florida;
• Facilitate strategic planning and implementation of life-cycle mitigation and recovery actions to reduce the threat and vulnerability of flooding in teh State of Florida;
• Increase and improve flood risk outreach and education;
• Identify and implement strategies to leverage available resources and information between agencies

Florida Silver Jackets Team Charter (pdf, 1.71MB)

Resilience Guidebooks Rural Inland Counties in Florida

The State of Florida Silver Jackets Team implemented the Inland Community Resiliency Project that supported the rural inland counties of Columbia and Highlands. The project included preparing a guidebook with proposed solutions to reduce identified risks and building a network of relationships between county emergency mangers, state agencies and federal agencies to improve resilience. Currently scaled to achieve increased community resilience at the county level, this work also serves as a pilot project that could be applied to other rural counties in Florida and across the nation. 

Highlands County Guidebook (pdf, 6.25MB)
Highlands County Workbook (pdf, 10.9MB)
Columbia County Guidebook (pdf, 4.99MB)
Columbia County Workbook (pdf, 11.3MB)

Sea-Level Change and Storm Surge Implications for Selected Inland Areas of Florida

It is likely that one of the biggest impacts of Sea-level Change (SLC) will be on storm surge. As sea levels increase, the starting point for storm surge will change, and could cause the impacts to be felt further inland and more frequently. There are several tools available including maps, models, and analysis that can be used to assess vulnerability and risk associated with SLC and storm surge. The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has developed guidance for incorporating SLC consideration into all USACE water resources management projects.

Continue reading

Establishing a "High Water Marks Strike Team"

In July 2012, after Tropical Storm Debby, the Florida Silver Jackets team responded to the need for recording high water marks (HWMs) by developing a plan that calls for a HWM Strike Team and a central repository for collection and review. The plan is expected to reduce costs and redundancies, increase expediencies, and produce a better product.

Continue reading