Disaster Recovery Journal - Summer 2001 Issue- FEMA

DISASTER RECOVERY
JOURNAL

Return to the Spring 2001
Index

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Richard L. Arnold, CBCP
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Janette Ballman
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EDITOR
Michelle Saab
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Richard Sandhofer
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Business Continuity
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Journal of Business Continuity
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Technology at the Forefront

- by Cynthia Ramsay Taylor

When a strong earthquake struck in February 2001, Seattle was prepared. Over the past several years, Seattle has invested millions of dollars implementing new technologies that identify seismic risk and predict potential business, utility and infrastructure disruptions. Officials used this information to take action, strengthening and improving the disaster resistance of the city and reducing disruption and loss. Although the earthquake caused more than $53 million in damage, this figure is far less than it could have been. Thanks to the actions taken by city officials and citizens, Seattle residents were able to use mitigation technologies to strengthen their homes and businesses. That may have saved millions in recovery costs.
As more communities like Seattle embrace disaster prevention, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is working to incorporate and promote new technologies that will help communities to identify-and eliminate-potential damage before disasters strike. Most importantly, FEMA is bringing this technology to the community level.
One of the greatest challenges communities face in dealing with natural disasters is learning to cope with their unpredictable nature. To plan an effective mitigation strategy, emergency managers and local officials must first evaluate their surroundings and determine what is the worst-case scenario. What would happen if, in fact, a disaster would occur? How many buildings could be damaged? How many lives could be lost?
Current FEMA technologies give communities an accurate glimpse of this “what if” scenario for earthquakes. In 1997, FEMA, after five years of development work through the National Institute of Building Sciences, launched a disaster prediction software program called Hazards U.S. (HAZUS). The program is a standardized earthquake loss estimation methodology that uses Geographic Information System (GIS) software to produce detailed maps and reports describing the potential damage.
HAZUS can be an incredibly effective mitigation tool for local, state and regional officials. With it, communities can conduct a complete vulnerability assessment and then use that information to develop strategies, programs, and actions to mitigate those hazards. HAZUS can determine the potential economic damage to buildings, critical facilities, lifelines and utility systems. It will quantify the predicted number of casualties and injuries from a major disaster, or more specifically, the number of injured people who may require hospitalization. HAZUS can even estimate the impact of hazards that follow, or are triggered by, larger events. Other HAZUS capabilities include the ability to estimate the amount of debris, the long- and short-term needs for shelters; the indirect economic losses such as unemployment, and losses in tax revenue.
The software has been used for disaster planning in communities across the country, as well as major urban areas including New York, San Francisco and Portland, Ore. It has been adopted by organizations such as the California Office of Emergency Services, the Central United States Earthquake Consortium, Wells Fargo Bank and Charles Schwab and Company, Inc. among others. Most recently, HAZUS99 was used to produce the first national earthquake risk study conducted in more than 25 years and released by FEMA in September 2000. The HAZUS99 Earthquake Module is currently available with flood, preview hurricane, and multihazard modules planned for release in December 2002. A full hurricane model is due out in 2005 and a full wind model will be available in approximately 2010.
Because technology changes so rapidly, collaboration and technology sharing have become increasingly important. Over the past several years, FEMA has worked closely with the Wind Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University to develop guidance for ‘safe room’ technology for tornado and high wind-prone areas. Safe rooms are structures that are specially constructed areas of refuge with reinforced walls and a separate foundation designed to provide near-absolute protection against extreme high winds produced by events such as tornadoes.
Since the development of the basic safe room concept, many communities have begun to apply the technology to broader uses. Communities such as Tulsa, Okla. and Jefferson County, Ala., are building housing subdivisions in which each home is equipped with a safe room. Still other towns are using safe room technology to protect larger groups of people in what are called ‘community shelters’. In Grand Island, Neb. and Riley County, Kan., local officials are constructing freestanding community shelters (safe rooms) to protect families living in mobile home parks. Shelters have been built in community parks in Colerain Township, Ohio and Bolivar, Mo. And schools in Tuckerman, Ark., are planning to build safe rooms big enough to hold the entire student body.
Using technology for mitigation at the community level is most effective when private industry steps in. To promote using GIS capabilities and other disaster prevention technologies in local disaster planning, FEMA and the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) sponsor an annual grant program called the Community Challenge Grant. Grant recipients receive software and training valued at up to $100,000, and their work is showcased to other communities through annual ESRI and FEMA conferences.
Although the grant program is only two years old, 17 communities have already used this tool to augment their GIS and disaster planning capabilities. One such community, Rye, N.Y., is using the grant to create a comprehensive database of information that will be useful to all residents-not just emergency management personnel. Through a new interactive, Internet-based interface, residents will be able to access land use information, such as flood hazard or even zoning data, on the Web. This information will give even homeowners a chance to know what their risks are and to take action accordingly.
Through each step of the process, from risk identification, to planning and mitigation, FEMA is a valuable partner to communities wishing to prepare for and protect themselves from disasters. By providing knowledge, training, counsel and even technology wherever needed, FEMA continues to be a powerful resource in the fight to understand-and survive-Mother Nature.

Cynthia Ramsay Taylor is the National Public Affairs Manager for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Project Impact.
FEMA offers numerous publications to assist businesses, communities and individuals in becoming “Disaster Resistant.” To receive these publications or learn more about “Make an Impact” week and Project Impact: Building Disaster Resistant Communities, visit the FEMA Web site at www.fema.gov/impact.