FLOOD07834 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

A COMMON SENSE APPROACH: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Mitigation truly is the cornerstone of effective emergency management. Whether its retrofitting structures, enforcing building codes, acquiring and relocating property, or educating the public, mitigation helps to lesson the impact and reduce the costs of future disasters. Without mitigation and other forward-looking strategies, communities are vulnerable to a vicious, reactive cycle of response, recovery and rebuilding that no one can afford. With mitigation, communities are protected, damage is reduced and lives are saved. It's a common sense approach that people, governments and businesses are adopting nationwide. Investing in Our Future: Report on Trends in State Mitigation Spending describes how states are contributing to the health and safety of their communities by implementing various kinds of mitigation initiatives, as well as the ways states are supporting these activities. MITIGATION SPENDING Overall, it's apparent that states are spending significant amounts of money on mitigation. In fiscal year 1997, states reported spending a total of $1.24 billion or $5.42 per capita on mitigation, which is 80 percent higher than reported in fiscal 1996. Total mitigation expenditures represented about 45% of the $2.77 billion states reported for all four phases of emergency management, which also included pre- paredness, response and recovery. States spent an average of about $31.08 million on mitigation during fiscal 1997. When compared to the type of hazards faced by different states, it is evident that states spent the most in fiscal 1997 in mitigating against the effects of floods, hurri- canes and earthquakes, which usually inflict the greatest human and monetary costs. When divided into pre-disaster and post-disaster mitigation, states overwhelmingly identified their programs as pro-active, pre-disaster initiatives with about 90 percent of total spending on pre-disaster mitigation. Mitigation accounted for 73 percent of all pre-disaster expenditures, which also included emergency planning, training and exercises. In fact, states spent more on pre-disaster activities in fiscal 1997 than they did on post-disaster operations, including response and recovery. Thanks to these invest- ments, states are better prepared to handle any threat, which is one of the reasons why only about 5 percent of state emergencies are ever declared federal disasters. MITIGATION FUNDING The report also examined ways that states fund and support their mitigation pro- grams. All 50 states maintain emergency management agencies that are usually responsible for coordinating and administrating statewide mitigation programs. Several states have established separate disaster assistance funds, including some specifically earmarked for mitigation. Other states are exploring the possibility of establishing their own. "We are laying a foundation for a new approach to emergency management.. We've got to change the way we deal with disasters, or we are doomed to pay for our poor planning in lost lives and lost properly, over and over and over again." - FEMA Director James Lee Witt I Investing in Our Future: Report on Trends in State Mitigation Spending l2J