City of Albany, Dougherty Co. develops Resiliency Plan to better prepare for natural disasters

ALBANY, Ga. – City of Albany presses for community engagement in its pivotal Resiliency Plan, urging residents to actively participate in shaping the city’s future.

With funding secured through a Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) planning initiative, the city is currently spearheading a comprehensive plan aimed at strengthening Albany’s environmental, social, and economic resilience.

“The City of Albany and Dougherty county are developing a Resiliency Plan, and this is something new to Albany, and really new to the state of Georgia. What we’re trying to do with this is to look at the disasters, the things that could happen to us and have happened to us like floods and tornadoes and COVID. What if we lost our internet? What we lost electricity? A variety of different things and find out what we do now to recover from that and how we can make the community stronger so we can resist those things and we can recover quicker. So, we want to become more resilient to disasters in the future, said Paul Forgey, AICP, CFM, Planning & Development Services Director.

Paul Forgey, Director of Planning and Development Services, emphasizes the significance of incorporating the community’s perspective into the decision-making process.

“Their perspective and we want to know, how have these events affected people’s lives? What does it mean to you to be resilient? It’s about the community. It’s not just the city and the county governments. We’re including business as well. I mean, business is critical to Albany and the government. I mean, we support business, but we’re not the ones that are running the businesses. We want to make sure that after a disaster, businesses come back as quickly as possible. So, we’re looking at all the different things to make Albany and the county stronger moving forward,” said Forgey.

Citizens are encouraged to participate by sharing their stories and images through a lived experiences survey, ensuring their voices are heard in the decision-making process.

“The survey is on the City of Albany’s web page on the Planning and Development Services. They can go to that and they can find the survey. They can call my department and we can direct people to it. Just go to the City of Albany’s website and look for Planning and Development Services. It’s called the Resiliency Plan, and it’s on that page, but we really want people to give us their stories and their input. This will be a stronger plan if the public participates,” said Forgey.

De’Andra Jacobs reporting.

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