About ICF

Dolores Acurso

Senior Director, Disaster Management
California
Dolores is an expert in designing and managing disaster recovery programs with more than 25 years of experience.

Dolores works on preparing, responding, and recovering from federally declared disaster events. She has worked on all types of national disasters, including civil unrest, fires, flooding, earthquake, freeze, tropical storms, and hurricanes.

While working for the State of California, she was a response and recovery operations and program manager. In this role, she participated in planning and exercise efforts and program implementation. She also served as program manager for all three Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster recovery programs (Individual Assistance, Public Assistance, and Hazard Mitigation Grants), reviewing regulations for potential impacts, drafting agency and program level policies, and briefing the media and elected officials.

Dolores is a leader in designing, developing, managing, operating, and implementing federally funded disaster assistance recovery programs at the federal, state, and local levels. She has worked on Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant-disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funded programs including the design, management, and implementation of housing and infrastructure programs in Louisiana, New York, New Jersey, and Texas. In New Jersey, she implemented the $250 million Non-Federal Cost Share program, the $100 million Flood Hazard Risk Reduction program, the $300 million Blue Acres Buyout Program, and other programs. She currently provides programmatic and operational support to the HUD-funded programs in City of Columbia, the CDBG-DR Housing Program for South Carolina, and the State of California Community Development Grant Block COVID (CDBG-CV) program.

"At the heart of what we do when we prepare, respond, and recover from a disaster are the people whose lives have been impacted. We must never forget that."

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