Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management

Crisis and Emergency Management

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April 2004                                                                            Volume 6 - Number 3

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Perspectives...

Mitigation Leads to More Effective Response and Recovery Phases

Greg Licamele

Tompkins County, New York, sits as one of those bucolic, typical American areas with rolling hills, checkerboard farmlands and quaint cities in the center of the state. All’s usually quiet, but nature can come calling at any time resulting in images of destruction and death.

So are cities and counties working toward mitigation plans that address real issues of floods, fires and storms? Have risks been identified and then ranked? Where does mitigation fit in a community emergency plan?

Tompkins County is addressing such a niche with its multi-jurisdictional all hazards mitigation plan. This plan appears to be a prototype for all of the country to follow. Hazard mitigation needs a place at the table in emergency planning so the other phases – preparedness, response and recovery – can be accomplished more efficiently. With a plan to reduce the impacts of a flood, for example, towns and citizens will spend fewer resources on sand bags during preparedness, emergency services during response and utility repair during recovery. If a structure is mitigated from a repetitive flood area, then the county, and taxpayers, will be one step ahead of Mother Nature.

The citizens and elected officials of Tompkins County developed their plan for seven towns. The first page of the document symbolizes the key component of any mitigation plan – signature lines for all seven town leaders. A regional approach to mitigation must be adapted for a plan to work well. Otherwise, two competing plans or ideas that assume too much will not be successful.

Farther west in Omaha, Nebraska, Steve McMaster from the state’s Department of Natural Resources, said, “Mitigation makes all the sense in the world.”

But he’s quick to note the primary challenge facing mitigation in the emergency planning cycle.

“The tough part is the local sell, but it results in some great projects and people are usually happy in the end.”

Omaha successfully initiated a flood mitigation plan for the Cole Creek area of the city with citizen support and cost-effective arguments.

Hazard mitigation must be attached to all phases of emergency planning. Omaha does not need to worry about preparing and responding to the 26 homes it took out of the floodplain. Yes, mitigation may not pay immediate dividends or win any votes, but the mitigation process is a crucial catalyst to successful preparedness, response and recovery phases.

Natural disasters are bound to happen and in some locales, the threat of man-made events is higher. So communities must band together like Ithaca, Caroline, Danby, Enfield, Groton, Lansing and Ulysses in identifying events, structures, mitigating actions and the impact on the rest of the emergency cycle. It is common sense to figure out, like Tompkins County did in its plan, that winter storms are common while a human epidemic is rather limited. So now, a community’s resources should be marshaled to reduce the impacts with appropriate plans for winter weather and human epidemics.

Only then, can a truly effective preparedness, response and recovery model be fully implemented and utilized when nature (or man) comes calling.