Courtesy Photo | Terry Zien (red shirt) and the North Dakota Silver Jackets team at Fraine Barracks,...... read more read more
Silver Jackets is a federal and state interagency collaboration program that promotes having a team in each state. The Corps of Engineers coordinates it, and states lead the team efforts and set priorities, usually through their emergency management staff.
Terry Zien, St. Paul District program manager, is the lead coordinator for Minnesota and Wisconsin and the assistant lead for North Dakota. Silver Jackets is a planning program that promotes communication, collaboration and education.
The program works primarily to mitigate the consequences of floods but can address any hazards important to each state. Non-structural flood risk management methods are emphasized. This means that the teams seek to mitigate flood consequences rather than change the flood itself with structures like dams and levees.
The color “silver” was chosen to promote unity because no agency uses it in an official manner for symbology or clothing as part of their normal operations. During an emergency, the Corps wears red, the U. S. Geological Survey wears green, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, wears navy blue. “Those different colors can become confusing to the public. We don’t actually receive a silver jacket to wear, but everyone understands that that we represent one team working together,” Zien said.
Perhaps the most important part though, is the relationships that are formed through the program.
“The biggest value of the program is team synergy. This teamwork has transformed how we plan for and respond to these events,” Zien said. “The team in each state can leverage resources to address common issues, which is more powerful than any one agency alone.”
For example, in 2012, northeastern Minnesota and the Duluth area experienced historic flash flooding. None of the agencies had the resources to document the flash floods. Zien sent a request to Minnesota and Michigan Silver Jackets and within an hour they were able to pull together $50,000 and were able to send member agency staff to 250 different locations to record high-water marks and other data on the flood events. Zien said that after the event, and learning of the extensive data collected, FEMA provided money to turn the data into a report. “
“Collaboration is key during times of crisis,” Zien said. “Leveraging the expertise, programs and perspectives of partner agencies results in more comprehensive solutions.”
Zien emphasized the importance of relationship-building in the program and networking opportunities. “This isn’t traditionally what we used to do. We’re working with people we wouldn’t be working with otherwise, and that extends to collaboration beyond Silver Jackets,” Zien said. “We tap into the entire team’s network of contacts across highly varied stakeholder groups.”
Another example is the June 2014 Mississippi and Minnesota rivers flooding event. Zien served as the Corps’ representative to the state of Minnesota emergency operations center and was able to take information that he learned from the center and share it back to the Corps’ readiness operations center to ensure the flow of information and quickly resolve emergency issues in the field. The interagency coordination that took place saved time and prevented problems from falling through the cracks.
Zien also serves as the program manager for the Flood Plain Management Services program, flood risk management business line, and works with the Planning Assistance to the States program. Zien has a Bachelor of Science degree in geology and a Master of Science degree in civil engineering in water resources from the University of Minnesota. He has worked for the St. Paul District for over 34 years.
Future projects include flood modeling of the Rainy River, the Baraboo River 2-dimensional hydraulic model, elevation-frequency analysis of the six Mississippi Headwaters reservoirs, and hydrologic analysis of the Upper St. Croix River between Solon springs and Gordon, Wisconsin.
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This story first appeared in the Fall 2022 issue of Crosscurrents on Pages 10-11 https://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/Media/Crosscurrents/
| Date Taken: | 12.05.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 12.05.2022 14:01 |
| Story ID: | 434534 |
| Location: | ST. PAUL, MN, US |
| Web Views: | 72 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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