Natural disasters can threaten and destroy the health and well-being of people and our surroundings. Gateway communities are typically small and rural, which means that their emergency service providers may be volunteers and that these providers may have to travel long distances to respond to calls. GNAR community residents often take great pride in and economically rely on their natural amenities and landscapes. As such, natural disasters can ravage GNAR communities on multiple levels simultaneously, impacting not only the physical infrastructure, but the economic and social fabric of the place. GNAR communities may also face unique challenges regarding land recovery. For instance, dealing with landscape damage as a rural desert community among a complicated network of canyons is different than dealing with landscape damage in a heavily built urban environment.

Disasters can place a huge unexpected economic burdens on communities in dealing with post-disaster recovery, which is why preparedness is the best way to handle them. With climate change making disasters even more unpredictable with regard to when, where, and how often they will occur, people and places can take action to improve their resiliency and response to natural hazards.

Below you will find toolkit pages with resources to help support communities in preparing for and mitigating different disasters that face gateway communities. Think we're missing something? Reach out to liz.sodja@usu.edu.

Disaster Preparedness Toolkit Pages