NATIONAL RESILIENCE NONPROFIT CEO RECEIVES 2023 NEIL FRANK AWARD FROM NATIONAL HURRICANE CONFERENCE

Leslie Chapman-Henderson, the President and CEO of the nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, selected for career-long dedication to improving building codes and community resilience.

NEW ORLEANS, April 3, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Today, the National Hurricane Conference (NHC), the industry’s foremost conference regarding hurricane preparedness, response, and recovery, hosted the annual awards ceremony aimed at celebrating industry leaders and organizations who go above and beyond the call of duty to continue to improve the field. “These individuals and organizations have dedicated their careers and missions to improving disaster education, forecasting, preparedness, recovery, and resilience,” said John Wilson, Chairman of the National Hurricane Conference.

This year the conference’s highest honor, the Neil Frank Award, was presented to Leslie Chapman-Henderson, President and CEO of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH). Chapman-Henderson is the first female recipient of the award, which is presented to an individual for making a major impact in the areas of hurricane preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation, or related fields through truly exceptional and original improvements. The impact of those improvements must be national or international in scope. “Leslie has been a national leader in achieving resilience in preparing for the impacts of tropical cyclones since the devastation of Hurricane Andrew in 1992,” said Bill Read, Former Director of the National Hurricane Center and NHC Awards Committee member. “Advances in building codes have been outstanding largely due to her leadership through FLASH,” said Read.

A national preparedness campaign aimed at reducing flood fatalities, Turn Around, Don’t Drown, became a national success story when FLASH partnered with the National Weather Service to roll out the campaign. In 2008, under Chapman-Henderson’s leadership, FLASH and Disney opened the interactive weather experience StormStruck: A Tale of Two Homes. FLASH also created #HurricaneStrong, a community-based hurricane preparedness initiative; No Code. No Confidence – Inspect2Protect.org and brings together resilience leaders from across the country at the annual National Disaster Resilience Conference.

The award is named after Neil L. Frank, Atmospheric scientist; former Director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Florida from 1974-1987. He was instrumental in advancing both the scientific and informational aspects of hurricane forecasting.

About the National Hurricane Conference (NHC): The NHC is the nation’s premier conference for hurricane preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation training and education. The conference serves as a national forum for federal, state, and local officials to exchange ideas and recommend new policies to improve Emergency Management.

About FLASH

The nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH) is the country’s leading consumer advocate for strengthening homes and safeguarding families from disasters. The FLASH partnership includes more than 100 innovative and diverse organizations that share a vision of making America a more disaster-resilient nation, including FEMA, Florida Division of Emergency Management, Huber Engineered Woods, International Code Council, ISO – Verisk Analytics, MyRadar, National Weather Service, Renew Financial, Simpson Strong-Tie, State Farm, and USAA. In 2008, FLASH and Disney opened the interactive weather experience StormStruck: A Tale of Two Homes in Lake Buena Vista, FL. FLASH’s signature program No Code. No Confidence. – Inspect2Protect.org provides consumers with a one-of-a-kind building code transparency tool to easily identify their community’s building code. Learn more about FLASH and access free consumer resources by visiting www.flash.org and www.Inspect2Protect.org, calling toll-free (877) 221- SAFE (7233), following @federalalliance on Twitter, and Facebook.com/federalalliance.

SOURCE Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH)