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Considerations for Emergency Managers Risk management and hazard mitigation planning are important components of program management that may often be overlooked or not given the full attention that they should. Evaluating and planning from a risk management perspective is on means of considering transferring the risks from one party to another.

From an emergency management point of view, regardless of the sector, we must be better prepared to mitigate the economic and social impact of disasters by better planning and coordination across responsibilities. Public trust, as well as consumer and investor confidence, are key elements to ensure rapid and systemic recovery; these elements need to be strengthened through credible communication and effective action of both the public and private sectors. Governments need to work more closely in partnership with the private sector, which has key roles to play in disaster prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Major disasters and harmful events can have multiple international dimensions and these call for more systematic international cooperation.

Economic Impacts of Disasters outside the U.S. Haiti is poorest country in western hemisphere

All countries face the same challenges discussed to this point. The effect of disasters on a country’s Gross Domestic Product (the value of all its goods and services) can be detrimental to developing countries. To gain a clear understanding of the impacts of the disaster one must look beyond the immediate or directly related government expenditures but consider how external aid influences the economy of the country. Disasters can have a destabilizing effect on the economy because of their impact on consumer and business confidence, the liquidity needs they may create in the financial sector, and other imbalances they may create.

During disaster response and recovery, the international community often sends significant aid for recovery leading to the question if this diminishes the incentive to mitigate hazards. Is it not likely that during any disaster that a country can rely on international assistance and therefore minimize the desire to implement increased building safety requirements or adopt building standards.

The scale of single or multiple incidents can easily overwhelm the capacities of a single country to prevent the global spread of a threat. Indeed, various hazards can be global in nature (a disease, an environmental impact, etc.). In many cases, risk management strategies need to be complemented by not only inter-sector but also international cooperation.

Economic Impacts of a Disaster in the U.S.

Hardest Decisions-Resource Allocation-EHardest Decisions-Resource Allocation-E……

As indicated in last week’s lecture disasters often cause a shift in expenditure of public resources (tax dollars). At the local level, a municipality is required to provide matching funds for public assistance projects (we will cover later but in general public assistance funds are provided by the FEMA for repair of facilities owned by the public). This match requirement only kicks in if there is a federally declared disaster. If there is not a federally declared disaster then the affected state, and its political subdivisions (counties, boroughs, cities, towns and other creatures of a state) are responsible for funding the disaster response and recovery. The federal government can only assist if a state governor (or executive of a federally recognized Indian tribe) requests and is granted a major disaster or emergency declaration.

An area directly affected by a disaster is likely to face many challenges as public revenue (taxes), private investment, land values, cost of money, and potential of increased prices due to lack of supply and increased demand. One consideration must remain toward the scale of disaster. Large scale disaster or localized smaller disaster—bringing forward the question that has been a topic of discourse for over twenty-years, “What is a disaster?”

Flood Impacts USGS Science Priorities

• Cost $6 billion in average annual losses

• Cause about 140 deaths each year

• Damage infrastructure, causing indirect losses due to disruption of economic activity

• Threaten greater losses as increased urbanization and coastal develop- ment lead to heightened vulnerability

• National Streamflow Information Program: the Federal backbone for acquiring real-time and historical streamflow information

• StreamStats: a Web-based capability of estimating streamflow informa- tion everywhere, including places lacking gages

• Flood forecasting: using historical data to enable flood modeling

• Study climate change, which directly affects the intensity and frequency of floods

U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey

Fact Sheet 2006-3026 January 2006Printed on recycled paper

Floods Can Happen Almost Anywhere

In the late summer of 2005, the remarkable flooding brought by Hur- ricane Katrina, which caused more than $200 billion in losses, constituted the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

However, even in typical years, flood- ing causes billions of dollars in damage and threatens lives and property in every State.

Natural processes, such as hurricanes, weather systems, and snowmelt, can cause floods. Failure of levees and dams and inadequate drainage in urban areas can also result in flooding.

On average, floods kill about 140 people each year and cause $6 billion in property damage.

Although loss of life to floods during the past half-century has declined, mostly because of improved warning systems, economic losses have continued to rise due to increased urbanization and coastal development.

Science Helps Meet the Challenge

Reduction of flood losses must be based on the best possible understanding of how and where floods happen and how they cause damage.

Presidential disaster declarations related to flooding in the United States, shown by county: Green areas represent one declaration; yellow areas represent two declarations; orange areas represent three declarations; red areas represent four or more declarations between June 1, 1965, and June 1, 2003. Map not to scale. Sources: FEMA, Michael Baker Jr., Inc., the National Atlas, and the USGS

Flood Hazards—A National Threat USGS Science Helps Build Safer Communities

Presidential disaster declarations related to flooding in the United States and Puerto Rico

During the 1993 Midwest floods, boaters pass an airport in Chesterfield, Mo., Friday, July 9, 1993. (FEMA photo/Andrea Booher)

Flood Facts

• The 1993 Midwest flooding was the costliest river-related flood in history, at $20 billion.

• More than half of all fatalities during floods are auto related, usually the result of drivers misjudging the depth of water on a road and the force of moving water. A car can float in just a few inches of water.

• The principal causes of floods in the Eastern United States and the Gulf Coast are hurricanes and storms.

• The principal causes of floods in the Western United States are snowmelt and rainstorms.

• Flooding is the only natural hazard for which the Federal government provides insurance: FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program.

For more than 100 years, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has played a critical role in reducing flood losses by operating a nationwide streamgage network that monitors the water level and flow of the Nation’s rivers and streams.

Through satellite and computer tech- nology, streamgages transmit real-time information, which the National Weather Service (NWS) uses to issue warnings so local emergency managers can get people out of harm’s way, and operators of flood- control dams and levees use to take action to reduce flood impacts.

This information is also available to the public at http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ nwis/rt/.

Streamgages provide long-term data that scientists need to better understand floods and to define flood-prone areas as well.

The USGS has developed a flood-map- ping method that delivers online flood maps—including time of arrival, depth, and extent of flooding—before a storm hits. See http://pubs.water.usgs.gov/ fs2004-3060/ for more information.

Streamgage data also help in designing structures resilient to flooding and are the basis for the Federal Emergency Manage- ment Agency’s (FEMA) National Flood Insurance Program, the only Federal insurance program for natural hazards.

For More Information http://water.usgs.gov/osw/

http://www.usgs.gov/

The USGS national streamgage network forms the scientific basis both for long-term planning before and after floods and for emergency response dur- ing flooding.

Collaboration Leads to Protection The USGS works closely with the

NWS, the Army Corps of Engineers, and other Federal agencies and partners in every State, as well as many local govern- ments, to fund and maintain about 7,000 streamgaging stations. These relation- ships ensure that scientific information is always available.

Looking Ahead The USGS will continue research on

the physical and statistical characteris- tics of flooding, determining how flood frequency changes with urbanization, climate variability, and other factors for locations nationwide.

The USGS will also work to mod- ernize the streamgaging network and increase its coverage and robustness.

For areas without streamgages— roughly 90 percent of river basins in the United States—scientists are develop- ing new methods to gather streamflow information.

The USGS helps the public, policy- makers, and the emergency management community make informed decisions on how to prepare for and react to flood haz- ards and reduce losses from future floods.

During flooding, USGS hydrographers pre- pare to make a streamflow measurement at the White River at Petersburg, In., Tuesday, January 11, 2005. (Evansville Courier & Press/Vincent Pugliese)

At the Sorlie Bridge between Grand Forks, N. Dak., and East Grand Forks, Minn., floodwaters from the Red River of the North crest at 54.35 feet, Tuesday, April 22, 1997. This depth was more than 24 feet above flood stage and more than 4 feet above the previ- ous record. (USGS photo)

USGS biologists prepare to launch a wet- lands research boat for search and rescue in New Orleans during flooding from Hur- ricane Katrina, Sunday, September 4, 2005. (USGS photo)

Conclusion There is a challenge in responding to disasters in a way where financial and economic impacts are minimized (or mitigated). However, very little planning appears to occur in this risk management-focused area. How do emergency managers ensure that there is an understanding of the potential fiscal impacts of a disaster?

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