HAZARD MITIGATION PLANNING
MADE EASY!
A Simple and Easy Way to Develop Your Communitys Hazard Mitigation Plan
Over the next couple of days you will be learning about a local planning process called HAZARD MITIGATION PLANNING. Before this training program is over you will be well on your way to developing a HAZARD MITIGATION PLAN for your local community. That plan if properly implemented and followed may someday save the lives, property and livelihoods of your friends, neighbors, family, perhaps even yourself. Hazard mitigation planning may sound complicated, confusing and maybe even intimidating. It’s really not.
The first time people hear the term “hazard mitigation,” many of them say “What’s that?” Most people have an idea of what “hazards” are. Hazards are dangers or things to watch out for or risks, but what’s mitigation mean? The ancient Romans used the word “mitigare”
meaning “to soften.” Good old Daniel Webster says it means “to make less severe or painful,
to cause to become less harsh or hostile.” Mitigate is another way to say “relieve” or
“alleviate.” Hazard mitigation is kind of like taking an aspirin to make a headache go away, it
might not make it go away completely but it should help some. That’s the general idea, to make a dangerous situation less risky, but now let’s get down to what Hazard Mitigation is really all about.
Great! You’re probably thinking, now I know what the Romans and Daniel Webster meant, what should HAZARD MITIGATION mean to me? For our purposes hazards are natural, man-made or technological disasters. Hazard mitigation means reducing, eliminating, redirecting, or avoiding the effects of those hazards. The standard definition of hazard mitigation that is often used by FEMA and PEMA is:
Any cost-effective action taken to eliminate or reduce the long-term risk to life and property from natural and technological hazards.
The phrase “cost-effective” is added to this definition to stress the important practical idea
that, to be beneficial, a mitigation measure should save you (the American taxpayer) money in the long run. For example, in the California earthquakes when expressways and bridges collapsed, which was more cost-effective? Rebuild structures to the same standard they
were before the quakes or spend a little additional money to build stronger, more earthquake-
resistant structures? The second choice probably makes more sense. On the other hand, California probably doesn’t need to spend a lot of money to flood-proof homes in, let’s say, Death Valley. A more appropriate, cost-effective mitigation there might be against drought and extreme heat hazards.
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OK, that’s hazard mitigation, now what’s a Hazard Mitigation Plan, since that’s what this
course is supposed to be about?
Wow! You’re just raring to go! Well, a Hazard Mitigation Plan, then, is:
A community’s outline for evaluating hazards, identifying resources and capabilities, selecting appropriate actions, and developing and implementing mitigation measures to eliminate or reduce future damage from those hazards in order to protect the health, safety, and welfare of residents in that community.
Wait, that still sounds complicated, confusing and maybe even intimidating, doesn’t it? Let’s
break it down into smaller, more manageable parts. It looks like there are four parts to our definition of a Hazard Mitigation Plan:
Evaluating and prioritizing hazards
Identifying resources and capabilities
Selecting appropriate actions
Developing and implementing mitigation measures
The purpose of this course over the next several days is to explain and discuss each of these four parts and to give each course participant the opportunity to develop a working knowledge of each. The first three steps lead up to the fourth and final part, “Developing & Implementing Mitigation Measures,” in which you actually begin to develop a Hazard Mitigation Plan for your local community using the principles and skills learned in this course.
So enough already with the preliminaries and the formalities! Let’s get down to the serious business of doing our best to protect our families and communities from the next, sure-to- come, life-threatening disaster through Hazard Mitigation Planning.
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HAZARD MITIGATION PLANNING
MADE EASY!
PART
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