Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Ideas

Funding to include mitigation necessary due to events involving hazardous materials

Prioritization by greatest risk and vulnerability should be required by jurisdictions and state; however, states and jurisdictions should be able to demonstrate this with their own analysis and data sets. National-level data is much too coarse and is totally inappropriate to be applied locally to prioritize across jurisdictions. Since hazards also are often spatially discrete, the national data sets will not prioritize ...more »

To best facilitate community recovery, investments in mitigation should target the preconditions for disaster recovery - the four lifeline infrastructure sectors (power, water/wastewater, transportation, communications) as well as key government facilities necessary for post-disaster organization. These five sectors are necessary to establish a resilient foundation on which future recovery can be secured.

One challenge for much larger projects will be financing match or even upfront costs on a reimbursement-based grant. For smaller jurisdictions, having a loan program in place to cover match and up-front costs would potentially lower barriers.

Larger, more complex infrastructure projects would benefit from a phased approach that would allow multiple, connected, smaller projects to be completed on the way to a full system mitigation. This would allow more complete risk reduction, once the project is complete. This is especially relevant with large-scale flood projects, stormwater retrofits, transportation system retrofits, etc., when a single project might reduce ...more »

With larger projects, communities will need longer periods of performance to implement the project. PoPs should start on project award and be either longer or of a length proportional to the project size and jurisdiction capability.

FEMA technical assistance should be increased to tribes, especially. As a state person, we were able to work with FEMA partners to figure things out; however, tribes that went direct to FEMA but had the capacity of a smaller jurisdiction, ended up not participating in the program or coming to the state for assistance and then submitting apps direct to FEMA. Providing tribes with more technical assistance would increase ...more »

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FEMA, as the lead agency for Major Disaster Declarations, occupies a unique position within recovering communities where multiple Federal entities have authority to provide financial assistance, through FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Awards from the Disaster Relief Fund. While other Federal Partners (USDA NRCS, FHWA, USACE, DOI, BLM, etc.) often have authority to assist in repair of damaged facilities, they do not have the ...more »

Using mutual of understading forms among major funding agencies for pre/post disasters mitigation. We propose to consolidating multi-agencies' funding for mitigation. The best and quick resolution is to setup examples in chosen state (for example, PA is a good state to start this process. Through 1-2 year success mitigation, we can introduce this experience to other states or write into law and policy. We can possible ...more »

There is no doubt that the changes implemented by the Incident Command System structure in JFOs around the country, have greatly increased FEMA’s emergency and immediate response capabilities. However, in the eyes of many, the possible over emphasis on a strict ICS model has negatively affected the traditional grants programs by adding staff, expenses and have diluted communications with the Command and General Staff. ...more »

The Ohio Safe Room Rebate Program provides a rebate for the purchase and construction of tornado safe rooms for Ohio homeowners selected for the program. Homeowners that are selected for the program are eligible for a rebate of 75% of the cost to construct a safe room, up to a maximum of $4,875. Funding for this Program was made available thru FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) grant programs. The Ohio Emergency ...more »

The National Weather Service provides Tornado Warnings and also has information on how to prepare for them. See NWS: https://www.weather.gov/safety/tornado-prepare One of the methods is a safe room. And, under FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grant Program, there are pre-calculated benefits to make the application process easier. Learn more at: https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1424368115734-86cfbaeb456f7c1d57a05d3e8e08a4bd/FINAL_SafeRoom_JobAid_13FEB15_508complete.pdf ...more »

FEMA's latest Mitigation Minute indicates the pre-calculated benefits for seven types of mitigation projects, to help streamline the HMA grant application process. To subscribe to FEMA’s Mitigation Minute, visit their webpage and click on Subscribe at: https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDHSFEMA/bulletins/1ebdc89 For more information on the pre-determined cost effectiveness values, visit the Benefit-Cost Analysis ...more »

When map revisions are concurred to by a community, the submittal is sent to FEMA for review. Prior to FEMA approval there are usually cycles of comments and revisions which do not always involve the community. Once approved, the final FEMA approved mapping and analyses can differ significantly from the community approved analyses and mapping that the community has on file. There is no requirement currently that the ...more »