29 Sep 2023

Kansas City District, Missouri Silver Jackets host extreme-flood response tabletop exercise

Be prepared—it’s the best way to handle an emergency when one occurs. The Kansas City District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers knows this, and that’s why they partnered with the Missouri Silver Jackets team to host a tabletop exercise simulating an extreme flood event in the Kansas City metropolitan area. This exercise, the first of its kind in a decade, included participants from multiple levee and drainage districts, fire departments, public works, emergency management specialties, local, municipal, county and federal entities who support the levees during flood emergencies.

16 Nov 2020

Rast named USACE Silver Jackets Coordinator for 2019

The Silver Jackets Coordinator of the Year Award recognizes outstanding individual USACE efforts and contributions to a Silver Jackets team. The award recipient for 2019 is Mr. Brian Rast, of the Kansas City District. Mr. Rast serves as the USACE Silver Jackets Coordinator for the Kansas and Missouri Silver Jackets teams and has made significant contributions to meeting the states’ priorities for flood risk management in these roles. Mr. Rast has utilized the State Silver Jackets teams’ webpages to effectively communicate the teams’ partnership and interagency efforts and to keep past work readily accessible for reference. He has focused on building relationships between federal agencies to support the state teams, including co-facilitating a USACE-FEMA Partnering Meeting and establishing a Federal Partners Mitigation Workgroup. Mr. Rast readily shares his knowledge and expertise by conducting training sessions with partners on floodplain management plans and nonstructural flood risk management approaches.

27 Feb 2018

Silver Jackets working to communicate risks

“We’re connecting the dots. I love being part of a team which brings people together and contributes little parts to make a whole project,” said Brian Rast, Kansas City District Lead Silver Jackets Coordinator for Kansas and Missouri. Through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Institute for Water Resources, program funding is provided to Corps of Engineers districts enabling them to partner with agencies in reducing risks from natural hazards. This program is called Silver Jackets.