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L ~.i..... i- ~;-, \ I t 1,.":. ,- i ~ f 1 I ~ ~. i f t, ~\ , > if i i K< ~, ]:1j 0 $'5 JOINT TASK FORCE REPORT ON THE HAZARD MITIGATION GRANT PROGRAM Gary L. Sepulvado Abstract This paper shows that alert floodplain managers can obtain funds to reduce future flood damages after a disaster declaration. Funds I are available for hazard mitigation projects under the Hazard Mitigation Grant PrClgram (HMGP), a program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (:F'EMA). The HMGP has funded nearly $40 million in projects to reduc:e the impact of future natural disasters since authorization four years ago. Floodplain managers have garnered only 40% of the grants thus far, even though flooding over the past four years accounts for 80% of the disaster declarations. According to a recent task force finding, more funds would be provided for floodplain management purposes through the HMGP but for level of awareness among floodplain managers. This observation is one of several outcomes of a cooperative evaluation of the HMGP by the Association of state Floodplain Managers (ASFPM), the National Emergency ]~anagement Association (NEMA), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The evaluation occurred in 1992. Where states: and local agency personnel work together to identify flood hazard mitigation projects, the success rate if high. For example, nearly 300 structures are being removed from floodplains in IndLma, Kentucky, and Maine where state and local leadership and coordination runs high in flood hazard mitigation. The Task Force found that program delays have occurred because there is (1) a need to forge new partnerships of expertise to support hazard mitigation objectives, (2) a need to insti tutionalize, through planning, a continuous consistent and coherent approach tCl hazard mitigation instead of an intermittent, erratic and disjoint:ed approach, (3) a need to improve guidance on environmental revie.r and cost-effective assessments, and (4) a need to standardize the application process nationwide. Among its main recommendations, the Joint Task Force strongly suggests that stat:es create teams composed of state agency expertise that would prepare hazard mitigation plans and, with close local agency coordination, shepherd the implementation of projects following a disaster. In other words, knowledge, coordination and leadership are the hallmarks of hazard mitigation.