On Tuesday, July 24, the Montana Department of Commerce will present a regional ‘Resiliency Summit’ in Missoula.

Jennifer Olson, the Division Administrator at the Community Development Division at the Department of Commerce describes the concept.

“We’ll be holding summits across the state to engage the public, businesses, nonprofits and the local community to engage in a conversation about resiliency,” said Olson. “Our goal is to create a statewide resiliency framework which can be used as a best practice and a model for all communities dealing with the impacts related to natural or manmade disasters.”

Olson provided an example of how a community needs resilience.

“Resiliency is creating an environment or creating a project or a conversation at the local level to provide improvements to infrastructure,” she said. “We fund infrastructure projects here at the Department of Commerce like helping to create a new wastewater treatment plant. If you only have one road going into that plant and it gets washed out in a flood, you can’t access the plant. So, by building in a resilient effort like a second road or a third road, or building it in an area that is less prone to flooding, it reduces the impact that we see when a community goes through these disasters.”

Prior to the summit, Missoula area residents are invited to take a ‘resiliency survey’ which can be found here.

The Resiliency Summit will be in Missoula on Tuesday, July 24 from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Missoula City County Health Department, Room 210, and the public is invited to attend.

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