The UGA Carl Vinson Institute of Government helped welcome more than 200 community leaders to Columbus for the 2025 Disaster Resilience Across the Chattahoochee Valley Conference in mid-July. The conference, designed to address emergency preparedness, was hosted by the Georgia Alabama Partnership for Sustainability in partnership with Columbus Emergency Management & Homeland Security, the Institute of Government, Fort Benning, and surrounding River Valley Region communities. It focused on helping communities, the Chattahoochee Valley in particular, prepare for gaps in key infrastructure services before, during and after a disaster, including loss of power, water, utilities and other energy shortages. The conference brought together experts and leaders from across the Southeast. Speakers and panelists shared expertise in state and local governance on mutual aid agreements, incident command, emergency preparedness and energy microgrids. Sessions also covered water resource management, debris management, mass casualty incidents, response coordination, communication, and manmade threats such as cybersecurity, drones, active shooters and terrorism.