Vocabulary List

• Mitigation: Includes activities providing a critical foundation to reduce the loss of life and property from natural and/or human-caused disasters. 

• Hazard Mitigation Planning: Hazard mitigation planning reduces loss of life and property by minimizing the impact of disasters.

• Recovery: Recovery includes activities necessary to assist communities affected by an incident to recover effectively.

• Recovery Support Functions: Their purpose is to support local governments and community organizations, including those not active in emergency response, by facilitating problem solving, improving access to resources, and fostering coordination among organizations.

• Non-Governmental Organization: Voluntary, faith-based, philanthropic, or community organizations that coordinate and collaborate to help individuals and communities respond to and recover from disasters.

Objectives

This Week's Objectives:

• Identify and describe the four steps of Hazard Mitigation Planning.

• Explain the eight guiding principles and how they apply to the recovery phase of emergency management.

• Describe the six Recovery Support Functions and how they relate to disaster planning.

• Indicate how a Recovery Checklist can be applied in the recovery planning and management phases.

Hazard Mitigation Planning

(Hazard Mitigation Planning Process | FEMA.Gov, 2021)

Hazard mitigation is the effort to reduce loss of life and property by lessening the impact of disasters. Mitigation is action taken to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to hazards. Mitigation is different from preparedness, which is action taken to improve emergency response or operational preparedness. Mitigation is most effective when it is part of a long-term strategy integrated with community processes and plans. Mitigation planning allows communities to think ahead and act before a disaster to reduce loss of life, property, and other financial losses later.

The mitigation planning process is slightly different for each state, local, tribal, and territorial governments. However, regardless of the plan type, there are four main steps in completing a hazard mitigation plan or plan update for any community.

Organize the Planning Process and Resources

At the start, a government agency should focus on assembling the resources needed for a successful mitigation planning process. This includes securing technical expertise, defining the planning area, and identifying key individuals, agencies, neighboring jurisdictions, businesses, and/or other stakeholders to participate in the process. The planning process for local governments should include opportunities for the public to comment on the plan.

Assess Risks

Next, the state, local, tribe, or territory government needs to identify the characteristics and potential consequences of hazards. It is important to understand what geographic areas each hazard might impact and what people, property, or other assets might be vulnerable.

There are four basic components of a risk assessment:

1. Hazard identification
2. Profiling of hazardous events
3. Inventory of assets
   

4. Estimate of potential human and economic losses

Develop a Mitigation Strategy

Government agencies and local communities then set priorities and develop long-term strategies for avoiding or minimizing the undesired effects of disasters. The strategy is based on an assessment of the unique set of regulatory, administrative, and financial capabilities to undertake mitigation.

The mitigation strategy also includes a description of how the mitigation actions will be implemented and administered.

Adopt and Implement the Plan

Once approved, a government agency and local community can bring the mitigation plan to life in a variety of ways, ranging from implementing specific mitigation actions to changing aspects of day-to-day organizational operations. To ensure success, the plan must remain a relevant, living document through routine maintenance. Periodic evaluations are necessary to assess changing risks and priorities and make the needed revisions.

As we have learned, disasters can cause loss of life, damage buildings and infrastructure, and harm economic well-being. Hazard mitigation lessens the impact of disasters by reducing loss of life and property. On a related note, hazard mitigation plans raise awareness of hazards, risks and vulnerabilities. Such a plan also identifies ways to reduce risk and focus resources on the greatest risks. An effective mitigation plan reduces risk to key assets in the long term. It also gives jurisdictions within the area information about risks, capabilities, priorities, and action plans. This helps local governments develop and update their hazard mitigation plans. Consider the elements below in terms of a traditional hazard mitigation plan. 

(Hazard Mitigation Planning for States, n.d.)

There are many mitigation strategies that communities can develop. Each one will likely be coordinated by multiple agencies. An important focus is to identify risks and vulnerabilities for disasters and then develop methods to manage, mitigate or control those elements. To help you prepare the for W05 Term Project assignment, the mitigation strategies below can be considered as ideas to help you think about how you can help lessen the impact of a disaster.

• Earthquakes: In 2019, the Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was closed for a number of reasons, including the need to make the temple more earthquake proof. The process is lengthy and complex, but similar principles of structural reinforcement can be applied to critical buildings that communities will need to manage the effects of a storm. For communities in earthquake zones, constructing buildings with structural reinforcement is one mitigation strategy to consider as well as conducting building safety inspections and increasing earthquake risk awareness. 

• Dam Safety: For communities with dams to manage and control water, using effective civil engineering can help mitigate the risk of dam failure.

• Extreme Heat: A mitigation strategy for extreme heat includes planting trees at homes, in business areas and other parts of a community so as to help reduce temperature impacts due to extreme heat. These actions can be carried out by families, government agencies, and other community organizations. Increasing awareness of extreme weather and how to assist vulnerable communities are other mitigation measures to consider.

• Severe Winter Weather: Many techniques exist for severe winter weather: adding building insulation to walls and attic spaces, protecting power lines such as trimming trees around lines or burying lines underground, and assisting vulnerable communities with heating utility bills. 

• Flood Control: To reduce the impact of flooding, communities can design flood control channels and paths to divert the flow of water during flooding or high volumes of water. There can be a considerable cost to this type of mitigation strategy due to the engineering methods required, but controlling the flow of water is critical to saving lives and property. Another term for this is stormwater management planning. 

• Hurricane Protection: Many communities around the world are in hurricane, typhoon, tropical storm and tsunami zones. While not all disasters can be fully controlled (for example, tsunamis), there are actions that communities can take to mitigate the effects of hurricanes and storms. These actions include building facilities that can safely serve as shelters, developing backup or redundant power sources, and protecting the water supply that flows to homes and businesses. Another action is for communities to design and build concrete barriers to block as much water as possible from entering streets and property. This strategy tends to be found in island communities and those next to large bodies of water such as an ocean.

• Severe Wind: Mitigation actions include enforcing building design standards to minimize wind damage, protecting power lines, improving roof coverings, and reinforcing property elements such as fencing.

• Volcanoes and Tsunamis: To mitigate the impact of a volcanic eruption or tsunami, early warning systems are used by countries around the world. Early warning systems can then be used to communicate with communities to evacuate or seek shelter before the tsunami arrives or before a volcano erupts. While property and infrastructure may be devastated, emergency managers can mitigate the loss of human and animal life through early warning systems and public information.  

• Wildfires: One mitigation strategy to reduce the impact of wildfires is for fire agencies to conduct tree trimming and vegetation management. Tree trimming involves removing tree branches so that the trunk is bare up to 10 feet (and then the branches appear). Another mitigation action is to create defensible space so that fires are less likely to jump from one object to another. Defensible space includes removing vegetation, bushes, and trees in certain others so there is space between these objects. Other mitigation ideas include using building materials such as brick, stucco, and stone while limiting the use of wood, when practical. 

• Drought: Mitigation planning includes monitoring drought conditions, monitoring the water supply, planning for droughts, enforcing water conservation, enhancing landscape measures such as drought-tolerant plants, and educating residents and farmers on water saving techniques.

• Erosion: Erosion is the wearing away of land, such as a riverbank, beach, or shoreline over a period of time. Mitigation measures include prohibiting the development of the land at risk for erosion, stabilizing erosion hazard areas, and educating about erosion hazards.

• Landslides: Mitigation strategies include preventing the impact to roadways and installing catch-fall nets to stop rocks from falling due to steep slopes.

(Mitigation Ideas, 2013)

Recovery

Emergency managers focus on how a nation or community builds, sustains, and coordinates disaster recovery capabilities. Emergency managers encourage and help communities to accelerate the recovery process, beginning with pre-disaster preparedness. This includes coordinating with community partners, mitigating risks, incorporating continuity planning, identifying recovery resources, and developing capacity to manage the recovery process effectively through collaborative and inclusive recovery planning. Collaboration across the whole community on recovery planning helps integrate emergency response, hazard mitigation, resilience, and sustainability into the community’s short- and long-term disaster recovery goals.

Figure 1 describes a recovery continuum in terms of time frames of short-term (days), intermediate (weeks to months) and long-term recovery (months to years). Note how preparedness is indicated as an ongoing process. 

(Developing and Maintaining Emergency Operations Plans, 2021)

Recovery Continuum

(National Disaster Recovery Framework, 2016)

Access the appendix for a description of the image.

Recovery Guiding Principles

There are eight guiding principles that guide recovery management. When put into practice, these principles maximize the opportunity for achieving recovery success.

1. Individual and Family Empowerment

Successful recovery includes the ability of individuals and families to rebound from their losses in a manner that sustains their physical, emotional, social, and economic well-being, and all community members must have equal opportunity to participate in community recovery efforts in a meaningful way. 

Care must be taken to assure that actions, both intentional and unintentional, do not exclude groups of people based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin (including limited English proficiency), religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, or disability. Care must also be taken to identify and remove social and institutional barriers that hinder or preclude individuals with disabilities and others in the community historically subjected to unequal treatment, from full and equal enjoyment of the programs, goods, services, activities, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations provided. 

It is vital that all individuals, including owners and their animals (including household pets and service and assistance animals) are provided with the tools to access and use a continuum of community support and resources that addresses both the physical losses sustained and the psychological and emotional trauma experienced. 

2. Local Leadership

Successful recovery requires informed and coordinated leadership throughout all levels of government, sectors of society, and phases of the recovery process. It recognizes that local governments have primary responsibility for the recovery of their communities and play the lead role in planning for and managing all aspects of community recovery. This is a basic, underlying principle that should not be overlooked by emergency managers. Local areas act in support of their communities, evaluate their capabilities, and provide a means of support for overwhelmed local governments. The government is a partner and facilitator in recovery, prepared to quickly enhance its role when the incident impacts relate to areas where a nation’s jurisdiction is primary or affects national security. 

3. Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning

The speed and effectiveness of recovery operations, and the resilience of outcomes associated with them, can be greatly improved through pre-disaster recovery planning. The scale and magnitude of recovery needs can also be reduced through pre-disaster actions. All stakeholders, including other mission area partners such as Response and Mitigation, need to be involved to ensure a coordinated and comprehensive planning process and to develop relationships that increase post-disaster collaboration and unified decision-making. Discussion and collaboration will also facilitate the development of a common definition of success. 

Pre-disaster recovery planning will help communities take pre- and post-disaster actions that significantly reduce future disaster impacts. By focusing on likely impacts, pre-disaster planning identifies avenues for near-term mitigation through means such as building codes that encourage disaster resilient building practices, and for long-term mitigation through reconstruction land use plans that avoid risk areas. In addition, all partners involved will work together to build and develop their collective capacity and capability to lead, plan, and manage their recovery and increase their overall resilience. Encouraging innovative pre-disaster planning practices can generate tools and resources that will support and sustain disaster mitigation and recovery efforts. 

4. Engaged Partnerships and Inclusiveness

Effective partnerships rely on an inclusive recovery management and coordination process that engages all elements of the whole community. Those who lead recovery efforts must communicate and support engagement with the whole community by developing shared goals and aligning capabilities to reduce the risk of any jurisdiction being overwhelmed in times of crisis. Layered, mutually supporting capabilities of individuals, communities, the private sector, NGOs, and governments at all levels allow for coordinated management and planning. Partnerships and collaboration across groups, sectors, and governments can assist affected communities in evaluating current and anticipated recovery needs and understanding how to access all available resources beyond traditional recovery programs. 

Engaged partnership and coalition building includes ongoing clear, consistent, effective, accessible, and culturally appropriate communication and information sharing throughout recovery. Engaged partnerships are vital for ensuring that all voices are heard from all parties involved in recovery and that all available resources are brought to the table. This is especially critical at the community level where nongovernmental partners in the private and nonprofit sectors play a critical role in meeting local needs. 

Inclusiveness in the recovery process includes individuals with disabilities and others with access and functional needs, advocates of children, older adults, members of underserved communities, and those with animals (including household pets and service and assistance animals). Engaged leadership relies on participation and involvement of all people in the whole community and ensures every community emergency management process includes people with disabilities across all committees, projects, and public gatherings. Involving people with disabilities in preparedness sets the stage and frame of mind to involve them in response, recovery, and mitigation. Sensitivity and respect for social and cultural diversity must be maintained at all times. Compliance with equal opportunity and civil rights laws must also be upheld.

5. Unity of Effort

Successful recovery is defined by the community, and it requires a unified, coordinated effort. Recovery experiences have consistently pointed to examples of increased coordination efforts as central to efficient, effective, and timely recovery. 

Coordination following any incident will allow recovery leaders to identify needs and priorities more effectively, reallocate existing resources, engage traditional and nontraditional whole community partners, and identify other assistance. Since most incidents are managed at the local area level, the incorporation of a coordinated effort is critical. A unity of effort respects the authority and expertise of each participating organization while coordinating support of common recovery priorities and objectives built upon consensus and a transparent and inclusive planning process.

6. Timeliness and Flexibility

Successful recovery maintains timeliness and flexibility by efficiently coordinating and conducting recovery activities and delivering assistance. It also minimizes delays and loss of opportunities. 

The process strategically sequences recovery decisions and promotes coordination across mission areas, addresses potential conflicts, builds confidence and ownership of the recovery process among all stakeholders. This process also ensures that recovery plans, programs, policies, and practices are adaptable to meet unforeseen, unmet, and evolving recovery needs.

7. Resilience and Sustainability

Pre- and post-disaster recovery activities offer unique opportunities to reduce current and future risk and contribute to a more sustainable community. A successful recovery process engages in a rigorous assessment and understanding of community risks that might endanger or pose additional recovery challenges. 

Resilience is the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions. Resilience includes the ability to withstand and recover from deliberate attacks, accidents, or naturally occurring threats or incidents. The Mitigation, Recovery, and Protection mission areas focus on the same community systems to increase resilience. Crossmission area integration activities, such as planning, are essential to ensuring that risk avoidance and risk reduction actions are taken during the recovery process. Pre- and post-disaster recovery efforts can be leveraged to implement solutions that will increase community resilience in the economic, housing, natural and cultural resources, infrastructure, health (including behavioral health) and social services, and government sectors. 

Communities can capitalize on opportunities during rebuilding to support their sustainability and livability goals such as laying foundations for future growth, making smart energy choices, improving economic competitiveness, expanding location- and energy-efficient accessible housing choices, and enhancing healthy, safe, and walkable neighborhoods for rural, urban, or suburban neighborhoods. The process of pre-disaster planning can help build capacity and increase resilience and sustainability by taking a deliberate look at risks and opportunities prior to an incident. Well planned, inclusive, coordinated, and executed solutions can build capacity and capability and enable a community to prepare for the future. 

8. Psychological and Emotional Recovery

Successful recovery addresses the full range of psychological, emotional, and behavioral health needs associated with the disaster’s impact and resulting recovery challenges. Behavioral health assistance provided in recovery may include providing information and educational resources, basic psychological support and crisis counseling, assessment, and referral to treatment when needed for more serious mental health or addiction issues. 

Individuals and families will be better situated to manage their recovery once their basic needs are met, such as shelter, food, and reunification with family and household pets or service and assistance animals. Successful recovery acknowledges the linkages between the recovery of individuals, families, social networks, and communities.

(National Disaster Recovery Framework, 2016)

Recovery Support Functions

Another way to approach disaster recovery is to organize around six recovery support functions (RSFs) as the key areas of recovery assistance. Their purpose is to support local governments and community organizations (including those not active in emergency response) by facilitating problem solving, improving access to resources, and fostering coordination among government agencies, nongovernmental partners, and stakeholders.

During planning and when activated post-disaster, RSFs identify recovery challenges, contribute resources and solutions, facilitate local stakeholder participation, and promote intergovernmental and public-private partnerships. The objective of the RSFs is to facilitate the identification, coordination and delivery of assistance to local  governments and the private and nonprofit sectors, accelerating the process of recovery, redevelopment, and revitalization.

The six RSFs include the following:  

1. Infrastructure Systems Recovery Support Function

2. Economic Recovery Support Function  

3. Natural and Cultural Resources Recovery Support Function 

4. Health and Social Services Recovery Support Function  

5. Community Assistance Recovery Support Function 

6. Housing Recovery Support Function

1. Infrastructure Systems RSF Related to Disasters

The Infrastructure Systems RSF facilitates the integration of the capabilities to support local government agencies and other infrastructure owners and operators in their efforts to achieve recovery goals relating to the public engineering of the nation’s infrastructure systems.

2. RSF Related to Disasters

The Economic RSF integrates the expertise of the government agencies to help local governments and the private sector sustain and/or rebuild businesses and develop economic opportunities to help communities become sustainable and economically resilient after large-scale and catastrophic incidents. 

3. Natural & Cultural Resources RSF 

The Natural & Cultural Resources (NCR) RSF coordinates community agencies working together to provide information and assistance to communities seeking to preserve, protect, conserve, rehabilitate, recover, and restore natural and cultural resources during recovery. Examples of Natural & Cultural Resources Support include the following:

• Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning: Identifies and prioritizes gaps and inconsistencies within and between relevant federal regulations, policies, program requirements and processes affecting natural and cultural resources that are used in disaster recovery, either separately or in combination with one another, and makes recommendations to the National Disaster Recovery Planning Division at FEMA Headquarters and specific federal agencies.

• Build Awareness and Consideration into Recovery: Engages states, tribes, and territories with partners' support to ensure NCR resources are considered and represented in recovery priorities and goals.

• Data Sharing and Coordination: Coordinate and facilitate the sharing and integration of NCR impact data to help understand recovery needs and support decision making for NCR recovery stakeholders.

• Technical Assistance and Planning Support: Provides technical assistance to help impacted communities develop recovery planning, assess impacts to NCRs, establish recovery task forces, develop cultural and natural resources protection organization networks, and enhance recovery capability and readiness for future disasters.

• Promote Sustainable Planning in Recovery: Integrates sustainable planning elements to provide a multi-disciplined effort that include consideration of long-term environmental effects to natural resources, integration of open space and recreational area and sensitive resources, and community well-being.
  
  

4. Health and Social Services RSF

The Health and Social Services (HSS) RSF restores and improves health and social services networks to promote the resilience, health, independence, and well-being of the whole community pre- and post-disaster (for example, hospitals, clinics, public health agencies, and so on). This RSF supports locally led recovery efforts focused on health care systems, human services, behavioral health, public health, environmental health, and education. Examples of Health and Social Services Support Include:

• Operational Planning: Develops plans for the transition from post-incident recovery operations back to steady-state operations and incorporates those into existing preparedness and operational plans.

• Implementation Strategy Development: Addresses recovery issues for health, education, and human services with cross-cutting priorities related to: the needs of children, youth, and families; integration of older adults and people with access and functional needs; climate resilience and sustainability; and equity in post-disaster outcomes.

• Training, Subject Matter Expertise, and Technical Assistance: Performs needs assessment and develops courses of action to support recovery strategies, with particular focus on specialized technical assistance, scientific subject matter expertise, peer-to-peer support, and programmatic technical assistance.

• Resource Identification: Assists community partners in identifying specific federal resources that can help address key health, human services, or education challenges identified in the recovery strategy.

5. Community Assistance (CA) RSF Related to Disasters

After a disaster, communities must lead complex efforts to recover. The Community Assistance RSF supports local communities by building relationships, providing training, and supporting efforts to plan, prioritize, and implement their recovery goals and objectives.

6. Housing Recovery Support Function Related to Disasters

The Housing RSF works toward addressing disaster housing issues, focusing on solutions that are feasible, sustainable, and resilient. As states and communities look to the federal government for assistance in housing both disaster survivors and others who choose to live in recovering communities, the Housing RSF coordinates and effectively integrates available housing-related resources, addresses conflicting policy and program issues, and identifies gaps in service and assistance delivery.

(Recovery Support Functions, n.d.)

Recovery Checklist: A checklist can be an effective tool for planning and implementing emergency management activities. Consider the checklist below for items pertaining to recovery operations.

• Describe the coordination mechanisms and requirements for post-incident assessments, plans, and activities.  
• Describe outreach methods to reach those in need of recovery assistance. 
• Describe how to identify long-term recovery needs of individuals with disabilities, others with access and functional needs, people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and others adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality. Then describe how to incorporate these needs into recovery strategies. 
• Describe how to identify community planning and capacity building issues for recovery.  
• Describe how to identify economic recovery issues.  
• Describe how to identify health and social services issues for recovery.  
• Describe how to identify housing issues for recovery.  
• Describe how to identify infrastructure systems issues for recovery.  
• Describe how to identify natural and cultural resource issues for recovery. 
• Describe how to identify long-term environmental restoration issues.  
• Describe how to coordinate with animal welfare and agricultural stakeholders and service providers in long-term community recovery efforts.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Non-governmental organizations are voluntary, faith-based, philanthropic, or community organizations that coordinate and collaborate to help individuals and communities respond to and recover from disasters. NGO support is provided by a range of organizations from small community-based nonprofits to national organizations with extensive experience in disaster response and recovery. NGOs provide targeted services to groups such as children, individuals with disabilities, people with access and functional needs, ethnically and culturally diverse communities, people with limited English proficiency, and animal owners (including household pets and service and assistance animals). 

As NGOs are pivotal to the recovery of an affected jurisdiction, it is crucial that the whole community understands their role and that they receive timely recovery information and the resources necessary to be an active participant in the recovery process. NGOs contribute a wealth of research and experience around issues of resilience, either by effecting change through private sector initiatives, philanthropy, and public policy, or through project-specific undertakings that result in stronger communities. In the pre-disaster setting, disaster planners work with these organizations to foster relationship building that will enable these groups to effectively engage in recovery collaboration. NGOs often have access to extended networks through local offices and chapters of the organization, providing contextually based insight and access to potential recovery partnerships and resilience champions. 

Examples of NGOs include the following:  

• Voluntary, non-profit organizations with disaster and recovery missions

• Faith-based organizations

• Community-based organizations

• Animal control, welfare, and/or rescue organizations 

• Housing nonprofits

• Business organizations

• Environmental organizations

• Cultural organizations

• Colleges and universities

• Health and social services agencies

• Planning and development organizations

• Independent charities

• Veterans and military organizations

• Aging organizations (serving older adults)

• Organizations serving those with disabilities

NGOs also offer expertise and assistance in a wide range of services and capabilities. Examples include the following:

• Volunteer coordination
• Communication support
• Feeding
• Long-term sheltering
• Alternate housing solutions
• Community recovery planning
• Case management services
• Short-term psychological and emotional support
• Respite
• Personal care
• Other medical or nonmedical supportive services
• Individual and systemic advocacy
• Spiritual care 
• Donations management
• Temporary roof repair
• Removing mud and other debris
• Benefits application assistance
• Support group facilitation
• Family caregiver assistance
• Technical and financial support
• Grant writing
• Environmental and cultural resources
• Housing repair and reconstruction
• Rehabilitation that meets accessibility and universal accessibility standards
• Project implementation

In contrast to non-governmental organizations, the local government usually takes leadership in preparing for and managing the response and recovery of its community. Individuals, families, and businesses look to local governments to articulate their recovery needs. The local government leads pre-disaster recovery and mitigation planning efforts and has the primary role of planning and managing all aspects of a community’s recovery post-disaster. These capabilities must be delivered in an effective way, regardless of the threat. Because such incidents may affect organizations’ or communities’ ability to accomplish these functions, continuity planning and operations need to be an inherent component of pre-disaster planning processes to ensure the continuation of each core capability and of the coordinating structures that provide them. 

(National Disaster Recovery Framework, 2016)

Additional Considerations, including Emergency Management Skills 

The following considerations and skills describe unique aspects of recovery that apply to pre- and post-disaster planning:  

• Leadership: Recovery leadership identified pre-disaster may change in the post-disaster environment.  

• Coordination: The organizational structure used for recovery coordination may be adapted from an existing structure or new structure may be created. The recovery process may also present an opportunity for regional collaboration and coordination.  

• Timeframe: Timelines for recovery progress established in pre-disaster recovery plans will likely need to be modified depending on the specific impacts of an incident.  

• Resources: Resources identified pre-disaster may be degraded or unavailable. Limited resources may impact the cost, speed, effectiveness, and timeliness of recovery.  

• Engagement: Whole community engagement is a critical part of pre- and post-disaster recovery planning that must be carefully managed. Successful whole community engagement may present challenges including the following: 

  •  Stakeholders may be displaced and/or unable to access the community. Communication methods identified pre-disaster may need to be modified to reach all community members and to provide ongoing support and information.

  • Normal mechanisms and social networks for community engagement may be fractured; including the loss of structure from schools, housing facilities, community centers, libraries, health (including behavioral health) and social service programs, or other community institutions. 

  • Recovery leaders will need to ensure actionable, effective, and accessible communications for all individuals, including individuals with disabilities and others with access and functional needs, such as limited English proficiency.  

• Resilience: Pre- and post-disaster planning are opportunities to build resilience by continually evaluating threats, hazards, and impacts. Then implement new policies and requirements to reduce risk regarding issues such as floodplain management, coastal zones, seismic areas, and historic and cultural properties. Resilience is also built by strengthening community leadership and collaboration during the planning process, integrating key considerations into planning such as community health (including behavioral health), long-term needs of the community, social and economic resilience of all members of the community, and unique needs of rural or high-density urban communities and other culturally diverse communities. 

Achieving Successful Recovery 

Each community defines recovery outcomes differently based on its circumstances, challenges, recovery vision, and priorities. One community may characterize recovery success as the return of its economy to pre-disaster conditions, while another may see it as the opening of new economic opportunities. 

Recovery is more than the community’s return to pre-disaster circumstances. Because of the time recovery takes, simple restoration may result in lost opportunities. This is especially true when the community determines that pre-disaster conditions are no longer sustainable, competitive, or functional. That conclusion may result from pre-disaster circumstances or stem from the post-disaster evaluation of damage or other change. Some communities, for example, may conclude that success requires relocating all or some portion of the community assets and restoring vacated areas to a more natural, predevelopment environment. 

In all cases, the community recovery decision-making is best informed by evaluating all alternatives and avoiding simple rebuilding or reconstructing of an area that continues to be at risk. In other communities, reestablishing an economic and social base that instills confidence in the community members and businesses regarding its viability can be critical to recovery success.  

References

Developing and Maintaining Emergency Operations Plans. (2021). https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_cpg-101-v3-developing-maintaining-eops.pdf

Hazard Mitigation Planning for States. (n.d.). Federal Emergency Management Agency. Retrieved November 30, 2023, from https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_state-mitigation-planning-fact-sheet_2023.pdf

Mitigation Ideas: A Resource for Reducing Risk to Natural Hazards. (2013). https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/fema-mitigation-ideas_02-13-2013.pdf

National Disaster Recovery Framework. (2016). June 2016. https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/national_disaster_recovery_framework_2nd.pdf

Recovery Support Functions. (n.d.). FEMA. Retrieved November 30, 2023, from https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/national-preparedness/frameworks/recovery/recovery-support-functions