Hazard Mitigation Programs

Hazard Mitigation Programs

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Hazard Mitigation Programs

Hazard mitigation is any sustained action which is taken to reduce long term risks to life and property which might be affected by a disastrous event. Hazard mitigation programs come by systematic planning of the policies and activities which can cater for the expected actions. The bureau mitigation administrators have identified several mitigation programs including the Hazard mitigation grant program, Pre-disaster mitigation program, flood mitigation assistance program, severe repetitive loss program and many other programs. Maryland state hazard mitigation program requires all the states to have a mitigation plan so that they can get assistance and save lives (Bernard, 2005).

Mitigation comes up during the wake of 9/11 and hurricane Katrina whereby many questions rose on what should be done so that people can prevent large scale disaster damage. Many experts rose up to reduce these disasters compared to the last decades. On the history of mitigation methods Scott Gabriel give a clear history on tracing the development of disaster expertise, public policy and also urbanization on the past centuries. Today many emergency engineers and planners have greatly shaped the world we are living today. A lot of information got was used to plan for future outcomes from the disaster which are very important for the prevention of natural beauty of environment.

According to Godschalk( 2009). Large recent fires have been reduced compared to the past decades whereby the forest structure and tree-ring was used to get history of the fire. The fire coverage severity helped to trace the forests which needed mitigation goals and management to be done on those areas. It has been witnessed that wild fire has reduced in today’s world compared to the past. The present prediction shows that the mixed fire severity regime on montane forest cover where great need of mitigation is needed to stop this forest fire.

The state mitigation plan should be approved by FEMA and review for every three years. Maryland’s flood mitigation program also is concerned with the environment whereby it assists people in identifying flood risks and achieving environmental goals. The government has its commitment on the reduction of risks and formed a National disaster mitigation program which is to build a safer and resilient community. The main objectives of the Nation disaster mitigation program are to advance the work to facilitate overland flooding and to recur flood risks and the cost of the floods. These programs provide implementation measures in order to reduce or eliminate the long term flood hazards (Godschalk, 2009)

National flood insurance program provides education to the community to create awareness to the people about risk management and how to reduce the hazards. The flood mitigation assistance program is responsible for provision of funds and other useful equipment to help the community reduce the hazard risks. By doing this this program has lessened the risk of losing life and property because people are aware on hazard mitigation. The flood mitigation program is a federal program with the responsibilities of funding other projects so that they can protect private or public property from hazards.

There is also a program which is created to support wind research known as the residential construction mitigation program. This program focuses mainly on improving the wind resistance of residences. Pre-disaster mitigation is also a funding program for hazard mitigation plans and all the implementation of the projects for the purpose of reducing risks not only to people but also property. Pre-disaster mitigation assistance program is a natural program which aims in long promotion of resistant disaster buildings that are vulnerable to hazards. This is done to reduce the potential damages that might occur due to hazard event. This program has done great work on the preparation of hazard events (Bernard, 2005).

There are many loses which have been prevented by disaster mitigation whereby even the government, private sector and other stakeholders have come to believe that mitigation is an investment rather than creation of losses. It has a focus on future outcomes which benefit many communities and the whole world in general. For instance, the government of Canada is moving forward on developing a national strategy on reduction of risk and implementation of preservation of natural environment. Many rivers have been constructed to reduce the risks of flooding which have prevented over 6 billion damages.

There are also non-structural mitigation that has been done through educating people on preservation of natural environment and flood plain mapping. There has been prediction of severe weather like El Niño and disasters have been witnessed to diminish through proactive reduction measures which are taken before the disaster has occurred. Some of the natural hazards are inevitable and people should be aware of these events because they cause enormous costs to manage (Swanston et all, 2009). Disaster management does not eliminate the disaster threats instead creates awareness and minimize the disaster through the plans made.

The programs were put in place aiming on preventing the emergences from occurring and by doing this there was development of good actions to mitigate the hazards. Emergency management plans and procedures should include proper pre-disaster training which should be internal people, contractor or other civil protectors. The testing of the plans should was made regular to check whether the plans were effective for the mitigation of the disaster hazard. The programs were put in place so that to meet the requirements needed for reduction of the disasters. The current state hazard plan was approved by FEMA on 2011 (Bernard, 2005).

Maryland’s flood hazard mitigation program come up from the disaster relief and emergency management act section 322 of Robert. This was to control the state of the flood in the community. These programs are not open for everybody to apply only the state emergency agency or similar offices that are able to apply for these programs. There are other projects which are not eligible for the programs like construction or the repair of the dikes and flood mapping. Most of these programs were put in place to reduce the overall risk to people and structures. In addition, they were also targeting to reduce the reliance on federal funding if the actual disaster were to take place.

Hazard mitigation programs have done much on people’s life and conservation of the natural environment. Many programs have funded the projects for mitigation activities to take place either before or after. The hazard mitigation grant program provides funds even for the long term hazard measures after the so that they can be implemented for effectiveness. The goal of PDM is to reduce the risks which might threaten not only people’s life but also for the beauty of the natural environment. Great inputs have been done witnessed on many water conservation plans to reduce prolonged drought( Swanston et all,2009).

Godschalk (2009) has shown that the projects have done much on flood mitigation whereby many improved drainage systems is and the low lying bricks have been raised. To add on, there has been regular clearing done on the drainage systems to avoid floods. There is also an improvement on wildlife sector where there has been construction of fire resistant tool and introduction of fire management programs. The government has done much on hazard reduction as compared to the past decades where mitigation was not fully put in place. Many private sectors have believed on mitigation plan as a way of cutting down losses rather than increasing the cost.

According to Bernard (2005) disasters are viewed as caused by both hazards and the number of vulnerable people affected. This gives a way forward on the plan to development which should be taken so that these impacts of disasters should be minimized. There is an alternative aspect that looks disaster as unresolved problems because even if mitigations are done they will still occur we only minimize the occurrence. This alternative perspective needs more activities to be done for the proper preparedness of the disaster where much effort from the community is needed because there is need of unity to minimize.

Conclusively, we can only minimize the disaster hazard and not total elimination because no one knows the day and time of disasters occurrence. The mitigation programs comes by to identify where there is need of mitigation and pilot demonstrations which are of good practice for the reduction of the disaster but not for elimination. The mitigation programs are responsible for educating people too on how they should undertake disaster risks. For instance the tsunami which was caused by earthquake lead to many losses affected much the people of coastal regions which called for regional action to be done whereby practical action was to reconstruct the regions.

References

Godschalk, D. (2009). Natural hazard mitigation: Recasting disaster policy and planning. Island Press

Swanston, D. N., & Schuster, R. L. (2009). Long-term landslide hazard mitigation programs: structure and experience from other countries. Bulletin of the Association of Engineering Geologists, 26(1), 109-133.

Bernard, E. N. (2005). The US National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program: A Successful State—Federal Partnership. In Developing Tsunami-Resilient Communities (pp. 5-24). Springer Netherlands.