The Apalachee RPC has established a resilience collaborative for the Region, Apalachee Strong. With funding made possible through a grant by the American Flood Coalition, all nine of the Apalachee Region’s member counties have joined the collaborative. The initiative started in November of 2020, with the adoption of the ARPC’s Memorandum of Understanding that outlines the need for a collaborative approach in tackling resilience issues. The goal of the collaborative is to see a return on investment in our communities. The collaborative serves as a centralized forum for resilience related initiatives in the Region. By identifying the Region’s resiliency deficits, specific policies can be set to meet them, and grants can be pursued.
One of the first grants that the ARPC pursued under the collaborative is the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Resilient Florida Grant Program, through the Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection. The grant program was established this year by Senate Bill 1954, and allows regional resilience coalitions to coordinate solutions to sea level rise and flooding. The ARPC will utilize the grant opportunity to develop a regional vulnerability analysis, used to prioritize projects for inclusion in the Statewide Flooding and Sea Level Rise Resilience Plan.