Building Up Health Agency Staff for Hurricane Response in Florida
Building Up Health Agency Staff for Hurricane Response in Florida Building Up Health Agency Staff for Hurricane Response in Florida Emma Talkington, Nick Porter Discover how Florida bolstered health agency staff to respond to environmental health threats with ASTHO assistance. Hurricane preparedness, response, and recovery work continues to be a top priority for state and territorial health departments. Damaging winds, historic storm surge, and intense rainfall pose severe risks to those caught in the path of these formidable storms, and the impacts can be felt for far longer than the immediate hazards. In 2022, Hurricanes Ian, Fiona, and Nicole made landfall in the United States, causing dozens of deaths and billions of dollars in damage. Hurricane Ian alone caused 66 direct and 90 indirect deaths. In late 2023, and again in late 2024, CDC awarded funding from the FY23 Omnibus Disaster Supplemental to ASTHO to assist Florida in building capacity to recover from the environmental health impacts brought on by Hurricane Ian and to better respond to future hurricanes. ASTHO worked closely with CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR) Office of the Director and the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) to implement capacity building projects to bolster environmental health preparedness, response, and recovery capabilities identified as gaps following Hurricane Ian. Identifying Gaps and Needs from Hurricane Ian FDOH has a small environmental health preparedness team in their central Tallahassee office managing a large workload and a high demand for training, guidance, and resources from their county health departments. Using support provided by ASTHO and NCEH/ATSDR, FDOH focused on enhancing its environmental health preparedness, response, and recovery capacity through a combination of planning, resource development, and training efforts. These activities directly addressed needs identified by FDOH during scoping discussions with ASTHO and NCEH/ATSDR, as well as findings from after-action reports following Hurricane Ian. Utilizing Temporary Staff to Help Build Capacity The primary focus for FDOH’s first year of this project was on working with three temporary staff to focus on a gap and inventory analysis of FDOH’s Environmental Public Health Preparedness Unit’s policies, protocols, and resources. Additional work included updating existing environmental health materials and developing new materials — including standard operating procedures, emergency response checklists, and outreach education documents on environmental health risks. One major deliverable produced from these efforts was an updated internal all-hazards water preparedness document. In the second year of the project, two of the temporary staff from the first year left for other opportunities. The remaining temporary staff member stayed onboard and continued to support FDOH by assisting with the development and organization of resources and the refinement of internal emergency preparedness processes, strengthening FDOH’s readiness for future emergency response and statewide support. Developing Staff Mental Health During Response Trainings When discussing training needs, FDOH identified staff mental health and burnout during disaster response as areas ripe for capacity building support — FDOH also noted these areas in their after-action report for Hurricane Ian. FDOH wanted to better understand evidence-based strategies that supervisors and first responders could implement to address these issues during hurricane response. ASTHO identified a training contractor who provides mental health training that can be adapted to best fit the needs of the trainees. FDOH incorporated two in-person trainings — one for county environmental public health directors and one for agency staff in direct response roles — into their Florida Environmental Health Association conference in June 2025. Additionally, FDOH held two virtual trainings for Florida-based state and county health department staff, one of which focused on compassion fatigue while the other focused on crisis communication. The same contractor helped develop and provide six additional virtual trainings in spring of 2026. These trainings focused on both didactic training modules and practice-based case studies modeled on realistic response scenarios. Specific topics included preparedness leadership and strategic readiness, response leadership and operational execution, and recovery and mitigation leadership and system improvement. Developing an Advanced Strike Team Response Training When discussing needs for the final year of the project, FDOH expressed interest in developing and implementing an advanced strike team response training for health agency staff to prepare potential environmental public health strike team members who had not been part of previous hurricane responses and bolster the knowledge of those who had. FDOH reviewed existing training resources, such as FEMA's Center for Domestic Preparedness’ Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response (EHTER) Operations course, to identify specific skills, resources, and topics most relevant to Florida’s response priorities and began developing a training curriculum focused on said priorities. FDOH utilized lessons learned from the EHTER Operations course to develop a shorter advanced strike team training for Florida-based environmental public health strike team members. The inaugural in-person delivery of this training occurred in May 2026. ASTHO’s primary support in developing this training included identifying and hiring a temporary contractor with expertise in the EHTER Operations curriculum development to review the materials FDOH developed and provide constructive feedback. ASTHO also procured key supplies for the advanced strike team training, as well as additional supplies that could be used during future hurricane response efforts for both the FDOH central office in Tallahassee and county health departments across the state. Utilizing Technical Expertise to Provide Guidance on Mold Questions Finally, the temporary contractor brought on to review the strike team training resources provided additional technical assistance to FDOH’s newly hired mold subject matter expert, which included the development of several resources intended to help clarify mold-related questions from county health departments, other state agencies, and the general public. Conclusion The support provided to FDOH from ASTHO and NCEH/ATSDR, along with a great deal of assistance from the Environmental Public Health Preparedness Coordination staff, helped build operational capacity through the temporary staff hires, train staff across the state on topics such as mental health and well-being and key preparedness and response principles, and procure needed supplies for future hurricane response efforts. Acknowledgements Thank you to the staff within FDOH that worked tirelessly to implement this project, including the temporary staff. Thank you also to CDC’s NCEH/ATSDR staff who oversaw this project. Without their support, none of this work would have been possible. Hurricane Response Recovery - FL, PR article yes