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<br /> <br />22 <br /> <br /> <br />The 230-kph (145-mph) <br />wiltds altd 4-meter <br />(12-foot) storm surge of <br />HlIrricalte Frederic left this <br />Dauphilt Island, Alabama, <br />boat house a shambles ilt <br />September 1979. Just 10 days <br />prior, H urricalte David had left <br />more thall 600,000 homeless in <br />Domiltica and the Dominicalt <br />Republic. <br /> <br />ings, development of evacuation plans, and prepa- <br />rations for providing evacuees with emergency <br />food and shelter. Such efforts have been very <br />successful in reducing deaths due to natural <br />hazards in some industrialized nations. The chal- <br />lenge during the ID NHR is to extend this success <br />to developing as well as other industrialized <br />nations. It requires a sensitivity to different <br />sociocultural settings, including an ability to learn <br />from local ways of adjusting to natural hazards. <br /> <br />HAZARD MITIGATION <br /> <br />Disaster preparedness and evacuation can reduce <br />death and injuries, but they do little to prevent <br />property damage and the sometimes devastating <br />economic impact associated with disasters. This is <br />the province of hazard mitigation, whose benefits <br />can be substantial. For instance, prohibiting base- <br />ments in new coastal bnildings and strengthening <br />their wind resistance by 50 percent might reduce <br />storm losses up to $1 billion per year (1978 <br />dollars) in the United States alone. Adding siting <br />and construction controls in U.S. cities that do not <br />currently have them and elevating all new build- <br />ings in the 50-year flood plain 4 feet might lower <br />flood losses nearly $500 million (1978 dollars). <br />Essentially, the physical impacts of hazard <br />occurrences can be reduced by preventing or <br />modifying the occurrence of the hazard, avoiding <br />the hazard by siting structures and functions away <br />from the hazard, and strengthening structures to <br /> <br />reduce or eliminate damage when a hazard oc- <br />curs. <br />In certain instances, prevention or modification <br />of a hazard is possible. For example, building <br />dams, channeling rivers, and building levees are <br />methods widely used to reduce losses from flood- <br />ing. These methods are reasonably well under- <br />stood and usually entail construction of large- <br />scale civil works. However, modification of most <br />other hazards is still at the research stage. For <br />instance, there are some indications that weather <br />can be modified to lessen the likelihood of hail, <br />increase rainfall, and possibly alter the course of <br />large storms. Future earthquakes may even be <br />modified so that a number of small earthquakes <br />would occur rather than a single large one. <br />Avoiding the hazard through land use manage- <br />ment is effective for some hazards. Use of land that <br />is prone to flooding, landsliding, or liquefaction <br />can be avoided or limited to those purposes that <br />are least threatening. For example, flood plains <br />can be used for parks and farming; steep slopes <br />can be left undeveloped to avoid either natural or <br />triggered landslides; tsunami inundation areas <br />can be planted as parks, thus both avoiding the <br />hazard and reducing the run-up of the tsunami by <br />increasing the surface roughness; and critical <br />facilities can be located outside the possible flood <br />plain that would be created should a nearby dam <br />fail. <br />It is not possible to avoid all potentially haz- <br />ardous areas. Rivers must be crossed. Water, <br />electricity, and fuel must be transported. Com- <br /> <br />