News Release

Town of Hilton Head Island Awarded FEMA Program Grant for Resilience Planning

April 6, 2023

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has awarded the Town of Hilton Head Island a Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant for development of a resilience plan.

Resilience planning is a process that communities can undertake to identify potential hazards, and then establish adaptation, mitigation and recovery plans before a disaster has a chance of occurring. The Town will receive $56,250 to use toward its resilience planning, which will focus on climate adaptation. The project will evaluate the effects of climate change, including sea level rise and natural disasters, and explore potential mitigation strategies and activities to reduce the impacts of climate change and natural hazards on our community.

Town staff, assisted by consultants with expertise in climate change, will develop and manage the plan. The plan will promote resilience by identifying short-term recovery needs in combination with long-term strategic needs to protect the community and its resources from the effects of climate change.

During its strategic action workshop in January, the Hilton Head Island Town Council identified the establishment of a resilience plan as one of its top 15 priority projects for the fiscal year 2023-2025 strategic action plan. Receipt of the grant aligns with the Town’s priority to have the first phase of an Island resilience plan in place in early 2024.

For more information, contact Marcy Benson, Senior Grants Administrator, at 843-341-4689 or MarcyB@hiltonheadislandsc.gov.