Based on your readings thus far from the text and your own research what does mitigation mean and how does it work? Explain the “whole community approach”. What does sustainability, redundancy, and resiliency mean as each pertains to mitigation. Why is public – private partnerships in mitigation important and how does or can it work? Finally, discuss business continuity planning.
Islam & Ryan: chs. 3 – 4
Please include biblical verses
Please use lecture notes and readings for references too
Islam & Ryan: Hazard mitigation in emergency management
Lecture Notes – Public & Private Mitigation
Mitigation is the buzzword that gets a city or county pass-through federal grant money every year. Under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (which amends the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief & Emergency Assistance Act, enacted in 1988), FEMA (in conjunction with DHS) administers what is called the EMPG program (Emergency Management Performance Grants). The baseline minimum for any community is $12,000 and there are formulas for getting more depending upon population size. Matching grants are also available if a community invests some of its own funds. State-by-state, it adds up to about $165 million per year, and can be used for administration purposes, planning, exercises, EOC enhancements, testing response plans, public education and outreach, and hazard or vulnerability assessment. The trick to successful grant-writing for mitigation purposes involves two essential ingredients: (1) involving a wide range of community stakeholders into the planning process; and (2) carrying out a comprehensive risk and vulnerability assessment.
Risk management has multiple options to address each risk identified in the assessment. Also, any combination of options can be used on the risks identified.
• Risk avoidance – eliminating the source of the risk. Moving a hazardous material out of a facility that cannot adequately protect the occupants into a building that is designed better to protect from the material is an example of risk avoidance.
• Risk reduction – achieved by taking action to lower risk to the building or facility to prevent or reduce the severity of the loss. Lower the risk by implementing improved or additional security measures or if the risk cannot be prevented, mitigate the consequences of the event.
• Risk spreading – accomplished by having similar services, processes, and or assets at more than one facility. By separating assets, fewer assets are at risk during any event or attack.
• Risk transfer – use of insurance to cover the replacement or other costs incurred as a result of the loss. This transfers the financial costs of an event to another funding source.
• Risk acceptance – what is called the do-nothing option. The recognition that there will always be some risk and in some cases, it may be more cost effective to live with the risk than to reduce it.
The action items in risk acceptance or mitigation belong to the decision makers. The role of the assessment team is to provide accurate security risk estimates and risk reduction strategies, supporting documentation, assumptions used in the assessment, and any other information required or requested to inform management decisions on the level of security or safety risk that is acceptable at the facility assessed and how to best achieve an acceptable level.
Screening analysis is an optional step before the risk analysis begins. This step is used if the facility has multiple buildings or sites. A complete risk analysis is a large commitment of time and resources for management. To limit the staff time and dollars invested, you may want to do a screening analysis to determine which facilities will need the assessment or this will help to prioritize which facilities will need to be done first if there are multiple facilities.
The entire risk assessment process was developed to support risk management decision makers. The decision makers are provided with descriptions of the threats, an estimate of the current risk associated with each threat, recommendations for reducing that risk, and an analysis of the impacts of implementing each potential risk reduction package.