Community Resilience System

The Community Resilience System (CRS) is a web-based system that can help communities assess its capacity to withstand and recover from significant disturbances. The CRS helps communities create a vision for the future and establish the necessary actions to improve overall resilience to disasters and other disturbances. The system will help people prepare for - and recover from - any challenge.

The CRS brings together people, processes, and technology to improve community resilience.

People: The CRS process is overseen and led by a group of committed leaders in the community. Their role is to guide the process, and to ensure that others in the community, such as citizens, business leaders, political leaders, all have chance to support the resilience building process.

Process: These people are brought together in an extended process that helps them work through all stages of increasing resilience: assessment, visioning, action planning, goal setting, and follow-up. The CRS provides multiple process tools and suggestions so that communities of all size and type can customize the process for their needs.

Technology: The CRS is an easy-to use technological platform that helps connect people and drive the process. Tools within the system interact with and build upon each other to track and support community progress.

Over 150 researchers, community leaders, and business executives participated in an 18-month process to provide input for development of the CRS. The effort was convened by the Community and Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI) with assistance from the Meridian Institute. CARRI created the CRS to be a web-friendly process that includes tools for American communities looking to increase their resilience. It is the goal of CARRI to support communities as they use the CRS.

Leading Communities

Seven leading communities have been identified to provide feedback to CARRI in order to help refine the CRS and make it even more useful to American communities. These communities, whose leaders and citizens are committed to engaging the full fabric of their society to foster preparedness and resilience, will help inspire others to ultimately follow their example.

The seven leading communities that will pilot the Community Resilience System are:

• Anaheim, California
• Anne Arundel County and Annapolis, Maryland
• Charleston and the Tri-County Area, South Carolina
• Gadsden, Alabama
• Greenwich, Connecticut
• The Mississippi Gulf Coast
• Mount Juliet, Tennessee

Frequently Asked Questions about the CRS