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Town of Scarborough
Emergency Management Agency
B. Michael Thurlow, Director
Mitigation
What is Mitigation
Reducing Losses for Homeowners through
Mitigation
Mitigation Information for Businesses
What is Floodplain Management
Questions about the National Flood Insurance
Program
What is Mitigation
Mitigation is the cornerstone of emergency management. It's the
ongoing effort to lessen the impact disasters have on people and
property. Mitigation involves keeping homes away from floodplains,
engineering bridges to withstand earthquakes, creating and enforcing
effective building codes to protect property from hurricanes -- and
more.
Mitigation is defined as "sustained action that reduces or
eliminates long-term risk to people and property from natural hazards
and their effects." It describes the ongoing effort at the Federal,
State, local, and individual levels to lessen the impact of disasters
upon our families, homes, communities and economy.
Through the application of mitigation technologies and practices, our
society can ensure that fewer Americans and their communities become
victims of natural disasters. For example, mitigation measures can be
applied to strengthen your home, so that your family and belongings are
better protected from floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural
hazards. They can be utilized to help business and industry avoid
damages to their facilities and remain operational in the face of
catastrophe. Mitigation technologies can be used to strengthen
hospitals, fire stations, and other critical service facilities so that
they can remain operational or reopen more quickly after an event. In
addition, mitigation measures can help reduce disaster losses and
suffering so that there is less demand for money and resources in the
aftermath.
In practice, mitigation can take many forms. It can involve actions
such as:
- Promoting sound land use planning based on known hazards
- Buying flood insurance to protect your belongings
- Relocating or elevating structures out of the floodplains
- Securing shelves and water heaters to nearby walls
- Having hurricane straps installed to more securely attach a
structure's roof to its walls and foundation
- Developing, adopting, and enforcing effective building codes and
standards
- Engineering roads and bridges to withstand earthquakes
- Using fire-retardant materials in new construction
Developing and implementing a plan in your business or community to
reduce your susceptibility to hazards
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Reducing
Losses for Homeowners through Mitigation
In nearly every location across the country, homeowners are at risk
from a variety of hazards, including: floods; earthquakes; high winds
from tornadoes, hurricanes, and severe winter storms; and wildfires.
Because most of these hazards only occur periodically, however, many
homeowners don't even realize the danger they face.
Nearly every location in every State is at risk. Flooding is by far
the most prevalent, occurring to some degree in every State in the
nation. Forty-one States have a moderate or higher earthquake hazard.
Wildfires can occur anywhere that fuel exists and weather conditions are
right. In addition, damaging high winds have caused destruction across
the nation, particularly in coastal areas. Given the hazards that are
out there, homeowners need to take action to protect themselves and
their property.
Fortunately, homeowners can reduce their risk through cost-effective
mitigation measures. Ideally, these measures should be considered before
your home is built. For example, potential homeowners should consider
carefully the risks that they would face by moving to certain
high-hazard areas before making the decision to buy or build. Also, when
building your home, close attention should be paid to how your home is
being constructed. Risks posed by all types of natural hazards
(including floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, or wildfire) may be reduced
substantially by paying attention to building codes and by incorporating
mitigation measures into the structure.
If you have an existing home, however, all hope is not lost. There
are also many steps that you can take to better protect yourself from
future losses. Buildings subject to earthquakes or high winds may be
strengthened to make them more resistant to a variety of hazards. In
addition, simple steps can be taken within your home to make your
property less susceptible to damages if a disaster occurs.
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Mitigation
Information for Businesses
Would you know what to do if an earthquake, flood, or hurricane hit
tomorrow, and could your business survive? The resulting damage often
goes beyond that of structure and contents. It means rebuilding costs,
pressure on credit lines, loss of savings, out-of-work employees, all of
which could be deadly to the future of your business. Your business
operation can be interrupted by direct damages to your business location
and equipment, or by failure of critical local infrastructures like
electrical power, water supply and road systems.
Over 630 businesses were affected in the Santa Cruz area by the 1989
Loma Prieta, California earthquake. Over 15% of these businesses never
re-opened. Over 250 business in Chesterfield, Missouri where affected by
the Midwest Floods of 1993. Only 65 of the businesses had re-opened a
year after the flood and the Chamber of Commerce estimates that only 65
percent of the businesses will ever reopen.
Mitigation is a proven, cost-effective option, for businesses to
reduce their expose to damages. For example, in a flood prone area,
businesses can elevate machinery and utility systems to reduce the
likelihood of water damage during a flood. In an earthquake prone area,
mitigation can be as simple as securing desktop equipment, like personal
computers or cash registers, with heavy duty velcro or straps to prevent
them from falling to the floor. In a hurricane prone area, the
installation of storm shutters over all exposed windows. Debris can
break windows, allowing high winds inside your business which can
increase the level of damages.
Businesses can take these first steps to
implement mitigation measures:
- Identify the potential risks which could affect your business.
- Purchase applicable insurance. Standard insurance does not include
earthquake or flood insurance. Contact your businesses insurance
agent to ensure your business is covered for all risks.
- Contact your State or local emergency management office or
building official, or a FEMA Regional office for more information on
protecting your business through mitigation.
- Encourage local community mitigation efforts that reduce the risk
to critical local infrastructures like electricity, water, and roads
that are necessary for the continued operation of your business.
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What is
Floodplain Management
Throughout history, people have settled next to waterways because of
the advantages they offer in transportation, commerce, energy, water
supply, soil fertility, and waste disposal. In spite of these benefits,
however, our historic attraction to settling along rivers and steams in
not without its drawbacks. Floods have caused a greater loss of life and
property, and have disrupted more families and communities in the United
States than all other natural hazards combined. The United States, as it
moves into the 21st century, is at a crossroads in the use of its
floodplains. The nation may choose to use these flood-prone lands for
the primary purpose of economic development, or it may take action to
better balance their economic and environmental outputs.
Floodplain management is defined as a decision making process that
aims to achieve the wise use of the Nation's floodplains. Floodplain
management aims to achieve a reduction in the loss of life, disruption,
and damage cause by floods; and the preservation and restoration of the
natural resources and functions of floodplains (which, in turn, lessen
damage potential). To achieve the goals of floodplain management, the
nation must adopt a new approach- one that takes full advantage of all
methods available to reduce vulnerabilities to damages and, in parallel,
to protect and enhance the natural resources and functions of the
floodplain. This approach would achieve flood plain management through:
- avoiding the risks of the floodplain,
- minimizing the impacts of those risks when they cannot be avoided;
- mitigating the impacts of damages when they occur; and
- accomplishing the above in a manner that concurrently protectsand
enhances the natural environment.
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has played a critical
role in fostering and accelerating the principles of flood plain
management. Flood insurance is available to flood prone communities
through the NFIP, which is administered by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency. Prior to the NFIP, flood insurance was generally
unavailable from the private sector and most State and communities did
not regulate floodplain development. Dependence was instead placed on
the construction of flood control projects such as levees, dams, and
channels to reduce flood damage. Despite the expenditures of billions of
dollars for these flood control projects, annual flood damages and
disaster assistance costs were increasing at a rapid pace. In response
to this worsening situation, congress created the NFIP in 1968 to reduce
flood losses and disaster relief cost by guiding future development away
from flood hazard areas where practicable, requiring flood resistant
design and construction, and transferring costs of losses to floodplain
occupants through flood insurance premiums.
The NFIP was broadened and modified by the Flood Disaster Protection
Act of 1973, which requires the purchase of flood insurance as a
condition for receiving any form of Federal or federally relate
dfinancial assistance, such as mortgages loans from federally insured
lending institutions. The NFIP has mapped floodplains in over20,000
communities and over 18,400 communities now participate in the program.
Many States and communities have established floodplain management
programs and adopted floodplain management statutes and regulations that
go beyond NFIP requirements.
The National Flood Insurance Reform Act (NFIRA), signed into law in
1994, strengthened the NFIP by providing for mitigation insurance and
establishing a grant program for State and community flood mitigation
planning projects. The NFIRA also codified the Community Rating System
(CRS), established objectives for CRS and directs that credits may be
given to communities that implement measures to protect natural and
beneficial floodplain functions and manage the erosion hazard. The CRS
is an incentive program whereby communities that exceed the minimum
requirements of the NFIP secure reductions in the flood insurance
premiums for their residents. Approximately 940 communities are
currently participating in CRS. The policies in the CRS communities
represent over 60 percent of all NFIP flood insurance policies currently
in place.
Examples of flood mitigation include elevating homes and business
above the base flood (a flood having a percent chance of being equaled
or exceeded in a given year), relocating homes out of the floodplain,
and minimizing the vulnerability to flood damage through both structural
and nonstructural means.
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Questions about
the National Flood Insurance Program
When you think about buying a flood
insurance policy, do you have these kinds of reactions:
- Disaster assistance will be available if my home (or business) is
flooded. I don't need to buy flood insurance!
- It's too expensive!
- My home isn't going to be flooded--we've never been flooded
before!
Here are the facts you need to know before
you decide.
Disaster assistance will be available if my
home (or business) is flooded. I don't need to buy flood insurance!
- Did you know that, before most forms of Federal disaster
assistance are offered, the President must declare a major disaster?
- Did you know that the Federal Emergency Management Agency's
Individual and Family Grant Program (for Personal Property) and
Temporary Housing Program (for Home Repair and Rental Assistance)
are available only if the President declares a major disaster and
makes that assistance available?
- Did you know that more than 90 percent of all disasters are not
Presidentially declared?
- Did you know that the most typical form of Federal disaster
assistance is a loan that must be paid back with interest?
- Did you know that the average Individual and Family Grant payment
is less than $2,500?
- Did you know that, to qualify for Home Repair Assistance, your
home must have relatively minor damage that can be repaired quickly?
- Did you know you cannot qualify for Rental Assistance unless your
home has been destroyed or significantly damaged?
It's too expensive!
- Did you know that the average duration of a Small Business
Administration (SBA) disaster home loan is 18.5 years?
- Did you know that the average SBA disaster home loan payment for
the average duration is $140 a month?
- Did you know that, depending on where you live, you can buy a
National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) flood insurance policy for a
$50,000 home for about $135 a year?
- Did you know that the payment for the average duration for a
$50,000 SBA home damage loan is $320 a month?
- Did you know that the average premium for an NFIP flood insurance
policy is $300 a year?
My home isn't going to be flooded--we've
never been flooded before!
- Did you know that floods are the most common natural disaster?
- Did you know that more than 80 percent of all Presidentially
declared disasters include flooding?
- Did you know that because more and more buildings, roads, and
parking lots are being built where forests and meadows used to be,
floods are becoming more severe?
- Buildings in special flood hazard areas have a 26 percent chance
of being flooded during a 30-year mortgage.
- Did you know that more than 25 percent of all claims paid by the
NFIP are for policies outside the special flood hazard area?
So, what's so great about flood insurance?
- Homeowners, business owners, and renters can all purchase flood
insurance, as long as their community participates in the NFIP.
- Flood insurance puts you in control: you don't have to wait in
lines or qualify for disaster assistance that you may have to pay
back with interest.
- Flood insurance claims are paid even if a disaster is not declared
by the President.
- You can buy flood insurance no matter where you live, in high-,
low-, or moderate-risk areas, as long as your community participates
in the NFIP.
- Flood insurance claims are handled quickly so flood victims can
recover quickly.
- When you file a flood insurance claim, you can get a partial
payment immediately, so you can start recovering faster.
- Flood insurance reimburses you for all covered losses. Homeowners
can get up to $250,000 of coverage and businesses up to $500,000.
- There is separate contents coverage, so renters can get flood
insurance, too.
- The average NFIP loss paid from the 1993 Midwest Flood was more
than $25,000.
- Flood insurance claims are paid by policyholder premiums, not
taxpayer dollars.
- Maintaining a flood insurance policy is one of the most important
things you can do to protect yourself and reduce the cost of
flooding disasters.
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