Key Definition

Mitigation: Mitigation includes activities that provide a critical foundation in the effort to reduce the loss of life and property from natural and/or manmade disasters by avoiding or lessening the impact of a disaster and providing value to the public by creating safer communities. Mitigation seeks to fix the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage. These activities or actions, in most cases, will have a long-term sustained effect.

Resources

Click on a link below to access mitigation resources.

• Guides and Publications
• HAZUS-MH Software

Guides and Publications  

FEMA Mitigation Planning "How-To" Guides

These Planning "How-To" Guides explain mitigation planning and provide adaptable tools to meet or exceed FEMA's requirements.

• FEMA 386-1: Getting Started: Building Support for Mitigation Planning
• FEMA 386-2: Understanding Your Risks: Identifying Hazards and Estimating Losses
• FEMA 386-3: Developing the Mitigation Plan: Identifying Mitigation Actions and Implementing Strategies 

Available at the FEMA Web site library: www.fema.gov/library/index.jsp

FEMA Security Risk Management Series Publications

The Risk Management Series (RMS) is a FEMA series directed at providing design guidance for mitigating multihazard events, including:

• FEMA 426: Reference Manual To Mitigate Potential Terrorist Attacks Against Buildings
• FEMA 428: Primer To Design Safe School Projects in Case of Terrorist Attacks
• FEMA 389: Communicating With Owners and Managers of New Buildings on Earthquake Risk: A Primer for Design Professionals
• FEMA 395: Incremental Seismic Rehabilitation of School Buildings (K-12): Providing Protection to People and Buildings
• FEMA 424: Design Guide for Improving School Safety in Earthquakes, Floods, and High Winds

Available at the FEMA Web site library: www.fema.gov/library/index.jsp

Mitigating Hazards in School Facilities – National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities

Mitigating Hazards in School Facilities introduces you to a simple process for mitigating school hazards and resources available from the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF). This document provides links to a series of NCEF assessment guides for examining the safety and security of all aspects of a school facility.

• Mitigating Hazards in School Facilities

Additional resources are available at the NCEF Web site: www.ncef.org

HAZUS-MH Software

HAZUS-MH is a powerful risk assessment methodology for analyzing potential losses from floods, hurricane winds, and earthquakes. In HAZUS-MH, current scientific and engineering knowledge is coupled with the latest geographic information systems (GIS) technology to produce estimates of hazard-related damage before, or after, a disaster occurs.

Potential loss estimates analyzed in HAZUS-MH include:

• Physical damage to residential and commercial buildings, schools, critical facilities, and infrastructure.
• Economic loss, including lost jobs, business interruptions, repair and reconstruction costs.
• Social impacts, including estimates of shelter requirements, displaced households, and population exposed to scenario floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

Features include updated schools and transportation data. Improvements to the Flood Model now provide dam/levee analysis capability, the ability to distinguish pre- and post-FIRM census blocks, as well as many other upgrades. The Earthquake Model includes the latest version of probabilistic maps from the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Hurricane Model now permits the creation of a study region using a hurricane track.

Federal, State, and local government agencies and the private sector can order HAZUS-MH free of charge from the FEMA Publication Warehouse.

FEMA Publications Warehouse
P.O. Box 430
Buckeystown, MD 21717
Phone: 800-480-2520
Fax: 240-699-0525
www.fema.gov