Just in time for the 2006 hurricane season, an updated version of the award-winning Disaster Planning for Florida's Historic Resources is now available. The 2006 edition also includes four case studies that showcase how the City of Apalachicola, and Nassau, Palm Beach, and Sarasota counties are implementing the manual's recommendations.

Over the last two years, each community developed short- and long-term goals to improve coordination between historic preservation and emergency management issues. Short-term goals range from removing dead trees from historic properties to developing post-disaster assessment teams with historic expertise. In addition, each community has begun incorporating historic preservation into their community's emergency management Local Mitigation Strategy (LMS) process, and is working to include historic preservation representation within the LMS committee structure.

Disaster Planning for Florida's Historic Resources is a joint project of 1000 Friends of Florida, the Division of Historical Resources of the Florida Department of State, and the Division of Emergency Management of the Florida Department of Community Affairs. The new manual can be downloaded at www.1000fof.org/PUBS/disaster/manual2.pdf. Click here for information on the awards presented for the 2003 edition of this manual.