Mark Wilbert has been the man the city of Charleston has turned to in case of emergencies.  He helped people prepare for Hurricanes Matthew and Irma.   He was there after 9 parishioners at Mother Emanuel were killed.   Last August, he planned for a crowd of thousands in town for the solar eclipse.  Now the former city Emergency Management Director has a new job.  He’s Charleston’s first ever Chief Resilience officer.

“We’re the first city in South Carolina to actually have this position,” said Wilbert from his office at the Gaillard Center downtown.  So what is a resilience chief?  The group, “100 Resilient Cities”, created by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2013 describes it as a top-level advisor who reports directly to the mayor, establishing a resilience vision to maximize innovation and minimize the impact of unforeseen events.