The night of December 10th, 2021, changed the lives of many people, including Kathy O'Nan, the Mayor of Mayfield, Kentucky. Mayor O'Nan is a courageous and empathetic leader who advocates for her community and dedicated to recovering and revisioning the hope and future of Mayfield. Hey story serves as a powerful example of what economic recovery looks like in rural Kentucky and how to lead in disaster.

Join Mayor O'Nan and Kaycee as they dive into what were the first critical steps in the recovery process, what was it like working with local, regional, state, and federal partners in the critical recovery phase, and what the business/workforce recovery process has been like for the past two years. Mayor O'Nan generously shares her journey in navigating the throws of disaster recovery and recalls tatics and stratgies that Mayfield in both the critical and recovery phases.

Key Takeaways

• Be flexible and creative with the response and recovery strategies.

• Utilize community development stratgies, such as the "stick note meeting" method.

• Celebrate or find happiness in the midst of disaster.

• "Utilize everybody you have and take advantage of everything that's brought to you".

Quotables

• "Our foot prints stopped for a short period of time".

• "Many of us got so tired of hearing, the disaster beging locally and end locally. Well, okay, but tell me how to get through this. But, I get it now. This is our disaster. We decide how we're going to get through it with a lot of help at first."

• "You just got to get rid of that shock from the first and then make a plan and then try to move forward as best as you can. And that's what we're doing."

• "People ask me, "how do you do this?" The fact is, I have no idea. You just keep going."

Resouces & Links

About the December 2021 Tornadoes

• • https://www.weather.gov/pah/December-10th-11th-2021-Tornado

Mayfield, Kentucky

• • http://www.mayfieldky.gov/index.php

• • http://www.gravescountyed.com/

• • https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/15/us/mayfield-kentucky-tornado-damage.html

• • Trace Adkins - Somewhere In America (Official Music Video) https://youtu.be/sHMlmNTE9SE

Economic Resiliency & Disaster Recovery

• • https://restoreyoureconomy.org/pages/phases-of-disaster/

• • https://www.iedconline.org/pages/disaster-recovery/

• • https://www.eda.gov/resources/comprehensive-economic-development-strategy/content/economic-resilience

• • https://www.nado.org/resilient-regions-integrating-economic-development-strategies-sustainability-principles-and-hazard-mitigation-planning/

• • https://www.cedscentral.com/resilience.html

• • https://www.disasterassistance.gov/information/fact-sheets

• • https://resilience.climate.gov/

Special Guest: Mayor Kathy O'Nan.