Interstate Collaboration Increases Resilience of Gulf of Mexico Communities

The Florida Hurricanes of 2004 (Charley, Jeanne, Ivan, and Frances) and Hurricanes Dennis, Rita, Katrina, and Wilma in 2005 represent an unprecedented sequence of major storms to ravage one province of the country—the Gulf of Mexico. In the history of European settlement, no other region has had to recover from such a series of devastating events. These storms caused approximately $60 billion in federal damages alone, not including costs to state and local governments and the private sector. This paper describes initial efforts to use the Gulf of Mexico regional governance structure to address these hurricane losses and promote increased community resilience.