In Chapter 3 of Community Disaster Recovery: Moving from Vulnerability to Resilience, the disaster damage from Colorado's 2013 floods is examined. The extent and type of damage that communities experience during a disaster is linked to the recovery processes, resources, and outcomes that communities experience. Understanding the damage incurred by communities underlies the analysis presented in the rest of the book.

In Chapter 4 of Community Disaster Recovery: Moving from Vulnerability to Resilience, the role that variation in resources plays in disaster recovery are analyzed. Resources are categorized as existing capacity the local government had prior to the flood and in-flow of external resources during and after emergency response. This chapter explores the resources that Colorado communities had available to them before the flood and how the disaster affected their resources afterwards. Specifically, the pre-existing capacity of communities to withstand such events is explored. In the wake of a disaster, a community’s resources, including financial, technical, administrative, and civic capacity, may propel a community towards more resilient recovery or, alternatively, may constrain the actions taken to rebuild and recover from a disaster. This chapter integrates and clarifies how resources and resource mobilization may influence post-disaster policy change and learning at the local level.