MEDIA ADVISORY: Coastal leaders gather to plan for resilient communities

WHAT:    Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and Tulane University’s ByWater Institute will launch an innovative new fellowship program to strengthen and coordinate disaster response efforts within the state’s coastal parishes. Emerging leaders from five Louisiana coastal parishes will attend a five-day workshop to more effectively develop and coordinate plans that strengthen the resilience of their communities to future disasters such as flooding, oil spills or hurricanes. 

WHO:    Tulane University President Michael Fitts, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and 15 newly named Disaster Resilience Leadership Fellows from Jefferson, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes.

WHEN:    8:30 a.m., Monday, Nov. 14

WHERE:     The Tulane River & Coastal Center, 1370 Port of New Orleans Way (next to Mardi Gras World). 

MORE:    The program is modeled after Tulane’s innovative disaster resiliency programs implemented across the world by the Tulane Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy (DRLA). As a member of the Consortium for Resilient Gulf Communities, Tulane’s ByWater Institute has adapted the DRLA curriculum to identify and address leadership challenges facing Gulf Coast communities. The consortium was established in 2015 with a three-year grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to assess and address the public health, social and economic impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.