Resilience

A resilient city is one that 'bounces forward' from shocks and stresses with a smarter infrastructure, a stronger economy, and a healthier community.

Shocks are typically disruptive, single event disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, terrorism, disease outbreak or extreme heat. Stresses are factors that pressure a city on a daily or reoccurring basis, such as aging infrastructure, climate change, violent crime, homelessness or concentrated poverty.

Urban resilience is about making a city stronger, in both good times and bad, for the benefit of all its citizens, particularly the poor and vulnerable. For Tallahassee, resilience is about strengthening the reliability of our infrastructure, protecting a robust natural environment and local economy, building up our adaptive capacity, and empowering self-sufficiency across the community. The City has implemented several strategic initiatives and continues to enhance efforts to build a more resilient community.

Community Resilience Plan
The City’s first long-range strategy to strengthen public safety and adapt to a changing urban climate.

Code Enforcement
Resilience officers inspect properties to enforce compliance to municipal codes and ordinances to reduce hazards, protect the environment, and improve public safety and quality of life.

Neighborhood Public
Safety Initiative
Law Enforcement, Neighborhood Affairs and others partner with residents to improve public safety through emergency preparedness training, crime watch, community beautification, and revitalization.

Electric Reliability
Electric Utility implements strategic investments to ensure our electric system is smart, reliable, and adaptive to meet the needs of the community.

Emergency Management
The Fire Department collaborates closely with County Emergency Management to support emergency preparedness, response and recovery.

Stormwater Parks
Like the award-wining Cascade Park, several city stormwater facilities are disguised as beautiful parks with amenities that support flood resilience and social cohesion.

Urban Forest Master Plan
In order to pro-actively manage and improve our cherished trees, the Planning Department has developed the City’s first ever Urban Forest Master Plan with state-of-the-art canopy data and best management practices.

Emergency Housing Repair Assistance
Community Housing department provides zero-interest loans to help low income residents remove health and safety hazards from their homes.

Complete Streets
New street infrastructure investments, like FAMU Way, are improving multi-modal accessibility, public safety and quality of life.

About the Resilience Office

Abena Ojetayo speaks to a neighborhood association about disaster prep.

The Resilience Office partners across city government and stakeholders to build our community’s capacity to thrive in the face of acute shocks (disaster or climate events) and chronic stresses (socio-economic, infrastructure or institutional weaknesses). Under the leadership of the City’s Chief Resilience Officer, the office develops a cohesive long-range strategy and oversees the integration of effective initiatives across city plans, programs, and policies. The team partners across different departments and outside agencies to implement initiatives that create a more secure and sustainable future for Tallahassee. The office develops and facilitates the implementation of the Tallahassee Community Resilience Plan and tracks performance through community risk and vulnerability data.

Meet the Resilience Team

Abena Ojetayo is the first Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Tallahassee, taking on the role in October 2017. She has researched and worked in various countries, including working as an energy and infrastructure planner of a town in Greece following a devastating earthquake, and managing an urban design team for the flood prone Anam New City, Nigeria, a project that was recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative as a promising approach to international sustainable development.

Before coming to Tallahassee, Abena worked on climate action planning at Cornell University and supported the green building and infrastructure design effort for its NYC Tech Campus in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. She moved to Tallahassee in 2014 to serve as Florida A&M University’s first Chief Sustainability Officer and the founding Executive Director of their Sustainability Institute, tasked with building resilience across all academic and operational aspects of the university. Abena has an interdisciplinary background, receiving a Bachelor’s degree in sustainable infrastructure and a Master’s in engineering management, both from Cornell University. She is a LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) accredited professional, and was named among the "10 New Faces of Civil Engineering" by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), highlighting her as one of the industry's next leaders.

Sustainability & Resilience Manager Adam Jacobs

Adam Jacobs is the City’s Sustainability & Resilience Manager, responsible for managing the City’s sustainability and climate resilience program and driving action across departments and with community partners. Adam has worked for the City of Tallahassee for over ten years in various roles that have advanced environmental stewardship and improved the quality of life for our community.

Adam began his career with the City in the former Environmental Policy and Energy Resources department, where he was the lead staff in drafting and implementing the ‘GreenPrint’ sustainability strategy, tracking performance and executing outreach activities such as the annual Earth Day events and Sustainable YOU Conference. Adam has also previously served as the Supervisor of the Neighborhood Affairs division, where he deepened the City’s engagement with residents, empowered them to live out sustainability principles, and helped build community resilience through design and implementation of award-winning initiatives such as the Neighborhood PREP program. Prior to working for the City, Adam was an educator, teaching environmental science and math for ten years in Jacksonville. He received his Master of Science in Planning from Florida State University, specializing in environmental planning and natural sciences.

Contact Us
Visit: 435 North Macomb St., 3rd Floor
Mail: 300 S. Adams St., B-15, Tallahassee, FL 32301
Phone: 850-891-7007; Fax: 850-891-8499
Email: resilience@talgov.com