Mitigation conference focuses on community resilience during disasters

Release Number: R10-12-009

Seattle - Representatives from Federal and State Mitigation departments in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington are meeting this week in downtown Seattle to compare notes and hear new ideas about Hazard Mitigation.

Hazard Mitigation is one way communities prepare for disasters, by taking measures to reduce the loss of life and property if a disaster happens. Such measures include precautions like raising buildings above the base flood elevation, retrofitting structures to enable them to better withstand earthquakes, and removing often-flooded homes from the floodplain and returning the area to open green space.

“This is a great opportunity to share experience and ideas,” said Mark Carey, Mitigation Division Director for FEMA Region 10. “State, local and federal mitigation specialists can learn a lot from each other about ways to create robust, adaptable systems to protect lives and resources during all kinds of disasters.”

Mitigation experts from FEMA Region 10 and from each of the states involved are making presentations on such topics as monitoring grants, maximizing budgets and understanding National Flood Insurance mapping.

The symposium is focused on Community Resilience—the ability of a community to readily recover from adversity. Communities can be resilient by identifying hazards and assessing the community’s vulnerabilities. Then they can increase their ability to recover more rapidly by reducing those things that will create harmful consequences in a disaster.

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.