Colorado Emergency Management Partners and Recovery Stakeholders,
Communities across our state have been through difficult times due to the impacts of the pandemic, wildfires, flooding, and highly pathogenic avian influenza. Colorado continues to be challenged with increasingly complex incidents that have a wide range of impacts on our communities. These impacts cover a wide spectrum of needs. We are sometimes challenged to identify affected individuals, their immediate needs, and how to coordinate assistance between local governments and state agencies. Some needs of our community members are not immediately recognized as a result of these challenges.
At the end of 2021, the Marshall Fire highlighted the need to provide recovery support that is more efficient. We lost over 1100 homes displacing community members across the metro area and disrupting the lives of thousands of people with a wide range of impacts. This response led to the passage of Senate Bill 22-206 (Colorado State Statute as 24-33.5-1106 (4)) which is designed to help communities recover from disasters quicker and rebuild in a more resilient manner. Additionally, this legislation authorized the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (DHSEM) in collaboration with the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA), to create and maintain a disaster portal for identifying and coordinating assistance that may be available to equitably assist survivors recovering from disasters.
With that background, we wanted to share exciting news on how the State is implementing this new law. Effective April 1, 2023, DHSEM and DOLA entered into an intergovernmental agreement and contracted with Crisis Track to conduct a statewide damage assessment and create a survivor portal.
Crisis Track has a proven record of efficiently collecting damage assessment information to inform local and state emergency management for disaster recovery decision-making. Crisis Track is unique in that they preload assessor data allowing damage assessment teams to more efficiently collect data and track progress. This pre-loaded data also provides the survivor portal the ability to tie registrants to a parcel in the impacted area allowing governments the ability to identify impacted community members and their immediate needs. The system allows for self-registration, registration at a disaster assistance center, or other locations set up to provide survivor assistance.
The portal is the point of entry into the state recovery process for survivor assistance and creates efficiencies among state agencies. It collects basic contact information and asks a series of questions used to provide the Colorado State Recovery Task Force with the information necessary to coordinate assistance across the various state agencies. The development of the portal questionnaire will be coordinated with the various agencies
engaged in recovery.
DHSEM purchased a license for every county and tribe in Colorado providing local access to the program but pushing data up to the state. We have begun meeting with Crisis Track to begin implementation. Crisis Track will start by uploading data that is publicly available but then will need to work with each jurisdiction to capture data that they were not able to obtain. In addition, the DHSEM Field Manager will contact you to set up training sessions in each service area We know that you will have many questions and will continue working with you as we move forward. Please keep an eye out for an invite on May 31 to a stakeholder briefing. In the meantime, please feel free to contact your DHSEM Field Manager or DOLA Regional Manager with questions or concerns. We will do our best to address questions as quickly as possible.
Thank you for all of the hard work you do for your communities and the State of Colorado. We look forward to building a system that better assists our disaster survivors in the future.
Resources
- Crisis Track and Survivor Portal Announcement Letter to view or download.
Date: May 25, 2023