| TOP TEN NATURAL DISASTERS |
| Ranked by FEMA Relief Costs |
| Event / Year / FEMA Funding* |
1. Northridge Earthquake (CA) 1994 $6.999 billion
2. Hurricane Georges (AL, FL, LA, MS, PR, VI) 1998 $2.333 billion
3. Hurricane Andrew (FL, LA) 1992 $1.849 billion
4. Hurricane Hugo (NC, SC, PR, VI) 1989 $1.308 billion
5. Midwest Floods (IL, IA, KS, MN, MO,
NE, ND, SD, WI) 1993 $1.141 billion
6. Hurricane Floyd(CT, DE, FL, ME, MD,
NH, NJ, NY, NC, PA, SC, VT, VA) 1999 $1.085 billion
7. Tropical Storm Allison (FL, LA, MS, PA, TX) 2001 $879.5 million
8. Loma Prieta Earthquake (CA) 1989 $865.5 million
9. Red River Valley Floods (MN, ND, SD) 1997 $734.0 million
10. Hurricane Fran (MD, NC, PA,VA, WV) 1996 $621.2 million
*Costs as of February 28, 2002. Figures do not include funding
provided by other participating federal agencies. |
| MITIGATION MISSION STATEMENT |
| Mitigation is the cornerstone of emergency management. It’s
the ongoing effort to lessen the impact disasters have on people’s
lives and property through damage prevention and flood insurance.
Through measures such as building safely within the floodplain
or removing homes altogether; engineering buildings and infrastructures
to withstand earthquakes: and creating and enforcing effective
building codes to protect property from floods, hurricanes and
other natural hazards, the impact on lives and communities is
lessened. |
Since
the late 1970s the federal government agency best known as FEMA
(Federal Emergency Management Agency) has become synonymous with
disaster recovery and relief. Whenever and wherever in the United
States or its territories a natural disaster occurs, men and women
from FEMA are on the spot immediately helping communities and individuals
repair damage, rebuild and recover. They are familiar to us in their
standard-issue dark blue jackets with the agency’s acronym
in bold, gold letters.
But chances are that FEMA personnel were on the spot in a much less
visual, but every bit as important role long before, say, the first
winds of a hurricane began to blow. The agency’s efforts extend
well before an event occurs through its efforts to mitigate, prepare
and plan for what disasters can do.
The range of FEMA’s activities is broad to say the least. It
includes providing manpower, expertise, insurance funding and coordination.
Its personnel advise on building codes and flood plain management;
teach people how to get through a disaster; help equip local and
state emergency preparedness efforts; coordinate the federal response
to a disaster; make disaster assistance available to states, communities,
businesses and individuals; and train emergency managers.
One way to look at what FEMA does is to think about the life cycle
of disasters, officials say. The disaster life cycle is: prepare,
respond, recover, mitigate, reduce and prevent. It describes the
process through which emergency managers prepare for emergencies
and disasters, respond to them when they occur, help people and
institutions recover from them, mitigate their effects, reduce the
risk of loss and prevent disasters such as fires from occurring.
FEMA is administered through 10 regional offices. Its Region IV
serves Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina,
South Carolina and Tennessee—the heart of the Atlantic hurricane
territory.
PREPARE AND MITIGATE
Federal efforts to mitigate the effects of hurricanes and floods
are handled through the same FEMA program because they often are
linked by cause and effect. Although the result of 100 to 150 mph
winds are devastating and widespread—rocketing debris with
near-explosive impact and tearing through residential and business
districts—the greatest potential for loss of life and damage
from a hurricane remains the flooding that occurs from its storm
surge: the water pushed ashore from hurricane-force winds along
the country’s coastline.
In either case, however, FEMA’s mission is to prepare individuals
and businesses for the dangers they face and to lessen the impact
of natural disasters by recommending improvements to everything
from building codes to evacuation plans.
FEMA provides liaison teams to assist in the coordination of advisories
and emergency evacuation activities with federal, state and local
governments. Its experts will evaluate and recommend improvements
for emergency evacuation shelters and in the development of emergency
evacuation plans. Its teams also help increase public awareness
of hurricane hazards through training and outreach programs—in
person and through its Web site.
FEMA personnel often remain on the scene following a disaster and
throughout the recovery period conducting post-event studies to
evaluate the efforts taken to prepare for the event and how well
the response was conducted.
Specifically in mitigation, the agency’s efforts to reduce
the damage caused by hurricane winds and flooding center on evaluating
and recommending improvements in the built environment, including
residential and non-residential buildings and their utility systems.
These activities include:
• Assessing building performance after significant hurricanes
and coastal storms.
• Developing designs for hazard-resistant construction in new
buildings and retrofitting techniques for existing buildings.
• Recommending improvements in state and local regulatory programs.
RESPONSE AND RECOVERY
FEMA also makes available funding for individuals and communities
to get back on their feet. Over the course of FEMA’s modern
evolution, it has provided billions of dollars to states through
insurance programs, funding for clean up and rebuilding and grants
to help states develop and establish pre-disaster mitigation programs
of their own.
Over the past 23 years the United States has sustained 54 weather-related
disasters in which overall damages and costs reached or exceeded
$1 billion. Of these disasters, 45 occurred during the 1988 to 2002
period with total damages/costs of nearly $200 billion. These events
include earthquakes, drought, fires, tornadoes, tropical storms
and hurricanes.
In any given year, FEMA funding for a single hurricane event can
easily top the billion-dollar mark. FEMA funding for hurricanes
Georges, Andrew, Hugo Floyd and Fran, combined from 1989 to 1999,
totaled more than $11 billion.
REDUCE AND PREVENT
Although it can trace its beginnings back to 1803, it was an executive
order by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 that created FEMA as we
know it today. That order merged many separate disaster organizations
and responsibilities including insurance, fire prevention and control,
preparedness, disaster assistance and civil defense into the new
federal agency (another more recent reorganization has brought FEMA
into the Department of Homeland Security along with 22 other former
independent agencies).
Almost immediately FEMA was faced with daunting challenges that
brought it to the attention of the American people through events
that made headlines in the 1980s and early ’90s: the contamination
of Love Canal, the Cuban refugee crisis, the accident at the Three
Mile Island nuclear plant, the Loma Prieta Earthquake and Hurricane
Andrew to name a few.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11 President
George W. Bush decided 22 previously disparate domestic agencies
needed to be coordinated into one department to protect the nation
against threats. As part of the major reorganization into the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) during March 2003, FEMA was brought into
the DHS and the Mitigation Division was created. It is administered
by Anthony S. Lowe.
The overall mission of the Mitigation Division is to protect lives
and prevent the loss of property from natural hazards. It continues
FEMA’s efforts to reduce the loss of life and property and
to protect our nation’s institutions from all types of hazards
through a comprehensive, risk-based emergency management program
of preparedness and prevention.
The Mitigation Division administers several national programs and
Congressionally-authorized efforts including the National Hurricane
Program, the National Flood Insurance Program, the National Dam
Safety Program, the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program,
the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, the Flood Mitigation Assistance
Program and the Pre-Disaster Mitigation authorized by the Disaster
Mitigation Act of 2000.
As a principal part of FEMA’s mission to help reduce the loss
of life and property due to disasters, the Mitigation Division supports
comprehensive plans to reduce risks before a disaster strikes. A
key way to do that is through grants. Earlier this year, FEMA announced
that 12 states would receive grants through its Pre-Disaster Mitigation
program to help state, local and tribal governments protect lives
and property by developing multi-hazard mitigation plans.
Mitigation Division Director Lowe says state and local hazard mitigation
planning is so important that it soon will be required for states
to be eligible for pre- and post-disaster mitigation assistance.
“States that show they are serious about reducing risks through
strong pre-disaster planning will be eligible to receive federal
funds in the future to support their efforts,” he says.
FEMA also makes available free to the public several publications
on its Web site (www.fema.gov/library). Some of the titles specifically
relating to hurricanes include:
• Against the Wind: Protecting Your Home from Hurricane and
Wind Damage
• Avoiding Hurricane Damage: A Checklist for Homeowners
• Coastal Construction Manual, FEMA 55 (Third Edition)
• Community Hurricane Preparedness
• How To Series: Protecting Your Property From Wind
• Hurricane Liaison Team (HLT)
• Southeast U.S. Hurricane Evacuation Study
Cover Story
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