A Just Imagine SWLA Q&A with Jennifer Cobian
Designed to serve as trusted community spaces during both emergencies and everyday life, Community Resilience Hubs are a key initiative of Just Imagine SWLA. These multi-use facilities provide critical resources during disasters and support community engagement year-round. In this month’s piece, we sit down for a Q&A with Jennifer Cobian, Grants Director at the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, to learn more about how these hubs are coming to life across the region.
What criteria guide where resilience hubs are placed in SWLA?
The goal is to strategically place resilience hubs in areas across our parishes to ensure critical resources are readily available near where people live. Calcasieu and Cameron are large parishes geographically, and it’s important to ensure resilience hubs are within a reasonable travel distance for citizens, including those in rural communities.
Accessibility is crucial in selecting resilient hub locations. Since resilience hubs serve citizens after natural disasters when communications are limited, the sites should be in well-known and highly visible areas of a community. In addition, it is essential to select sites in low-flood-risk areas with well-maintained roads and drainage infrastructure to ensure the site remains accessible during and after events.
What are the steps and timeline for launching a resilience hub project?
The first step is to identify existing facilities that may serve as a resilience hub. An ideal structure is one that is hardened to withstand higher windspeeds, and that will not be needed for emergency operations after a disaster. Examples include public libraries, indoor park pavilions, and community centers. Utilizing existing facilities is the most efficient and cost-effective strategy for establishing a resilience hub in a community.
Where an existing facility does not exist, a new facility may be constructed. Like utilizing existing facilities, a realistic strategy to constructing a new resilience hub is to identify a dual-use facility that can serve a community purpose during blue sky days.
The timeline varies significantly depending on whether an existing facility is used or a new one is constructed. In addition, the funding source is a key determining factor for timelines. For
example, for projects that utilize federal disaster grant funds, the process may include an additional two to three years waiting for approval of grant funds before the design and construction process can begin.
How are resilience hubs tailored to each community’s needs?
The public input gathered during the Just Imagine SWLA community engagement process is incredibly valuable when considering the needs of resilience hubs because it gathered information from citizens at a critical time in our community’s recovery process.
Conducting an individual assessment of the surrounding community supported by a resilience hub is a crucial step to ensure the facility accomplishes its mission after a significant event. Utilizing public input, along with a thorough needs assessment of the area, will enable the hub’s features and resources to best meet the community’s needs after an event.
What funding or partnerships support resilience hub development?
Potential funding sources include grant funding such as FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), state disaster grant funding such as the Resilient Communities Infrastructure Program (RCIP), and local funding through local tax collections or private industry donations.
The Calcasieu Parish Police Jury allocated a portion of its disaster grant funding to construct the Mallard Junction Community Center and Second Harvest Resiliency Hub project. The Mallard Junction Community Center will serve as a local recreation and community center for citizens during blue sky days. The structure will be hardened to withstand higher wind speeds and can serve as a resilience hub after an event. The City of Lake Charles and the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury are partnering with Second Harvest Food Bank on the Second Harvest Resilience Hub project. Both projects have been awarded grant funding and are currently in their early design phase.
