The National Estuarine Research Reserves (NERRs) in the Gulf of Mexico work to protect people from harmful floods. Each NERR in the Gulf of Mexico has a coastal training program that partners with communities to increase resilience to flooding. The coastal training program at the Weeks Bay Research Reserve in Alabama has played a key role in creating the South Alabama Flooding Engagement Team (SAFE-T). The SAFE-T partners to train and provide technical support to decision-makers and communities to address flooding issues. Solutions the group focuses on can be structural like alternative shoreline protection and low impact development practices, or nonstructural like floodplain planning or open space mapping. SAFE-T trains municipal and county floodplain managers, engineers, emergency managers, surveyors, insurance agents, and realtors from coastal communities. Training topics have included government versus private market flood insurance, drone usage to communicate post-disaster conditions, planning strategies in the face of rising seas, flood map revisions, environmental justice, CRS updates and the performance of FORTIFIED™ structures during Hurricane Sally. Overall, this webinar will explain what the coastal training program does, how to effectively partner with key community members, and provide a case study from coastal Alabama to improve floodplain management.