State Mandate Influences on FEMA‐Approved Hazard‐Mitigation Plans Under the Disaster Management Act of 2000

• Published date: 01 March 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.177
• Date: 01 March 2016
• Author: Oluponmile Olonilua

State Mandate Inf‌luences on FEMA-Approved

Hazard-Mitigation Plans Under the Disaster

Management Act of 2000

Oluponmile Olonilua

This study is an evaluation of hazard-mitigation plans approved by the Federal Emergency

Management Agency (FEMA) using the requirements of the Disaster Management Act of 2000

(DMA2K). The study investigates whether or not there are signif‌icant differences in the mitigation

action plans (MAPs) developed by jurisdictions from states with existing planning mandates in

their comprehensive plans prior to DMA2K and those without existing planning mandates. The

requirements of such plans include collaboration with several entities, public information and

awareness, evacuation, sheltering, provision for special needs populations, terrorism, and technol-

ogical hazards. The f‌indings from the t-test analysis show there is no signif‌icant difference in plans

with or without mandates. Results also suggest the need for FEMA to further scrutinize and review

the approval process criteria to ref‌lect the inclusion of these identif‌ied elements before plans are

approved. Such scrutiny could lead to improved plans and subsequently lead to a reduction of

impacts of hazards.

KEY WORDS: hazard mitigation, disast er mitigation, emergency man agement, flood, FEMA,

collaboration, hazards

Introduction

Prior to the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA2K), 10 states had state

planning enabling legislation that required the inclusion of hazard-mitigation

activities in local comprehensive plans. These could be land use or building codes

designed to limit development in hazardous areas or the inclusion of postdisaster

policies and procedures in those plans. California, for example, is highly prone to

earthquakes and Florida highly prone to hurricanes. These states, as well as South

and North Carolina, require local governments to include provisions for natural

hazard mitigation in their comprehensive plans.

Past research has investigated the effect of state mandates on the quality of

local hazard-mitigation plans by comparing the quality of local plans in states

that mandate inclusion of hazard mitigation in their comprehensive plans with

those in states without such mandates (Berke, Roenigk, Kaiser, & Burby, 1996;

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Brody, Godschalk, & Burby, 2003; Burby & Dalton, 1994). Burby and Dalton

(1994) def‌ined quality based on facts, goals, and policy characteristics, and they

found that plan quality was a strong predictor of success because it allowed

participating jurisdictions to limit development in areas prone to hazards. Also

Berke et al. (1996) noted that mandates allowed local governments to develop

plans when they otherwise would not have, and that mandates led to the

development of better information on hazards, and encouraged local govern-

ments to incorporate hazard-mitigation goals into their comprehensive plans.

A comprehensive plan is the most developed. The plan is long term—it

covers the whole community and its development takes up to 20 years (Levy,

2011). Similar to a comprehensive plan a hazard-mitigation plan is a local

government’s long-term plan to reduce risks of hazards to prevent future losses

(FEMA, 2006). Both plans require identif‌ication of goals, policies, and actions that

are implemented over time.

For the purpose of DMA2K, the Federal Emergency Management Agency

(FEMA) def‌ined a local government as “any county, municipality, city, town,

township, public authority, school district, special district, intrastate district,

council of governments, regional or interstate governmental entity, or agency or

instrumentality of a local government; any Indian tribe or authorized tribal

organization, or Alaskan Native village or organization; and any rural commu-

nity, unincorporated town or village, or other public entity” (FEMA, 2002). This

study uses local government as def‌ined by FEMA to represent cities.

This study investigates the extent to which cities in multi-jurisdictions include

the following hazard-mitigation elements in their FEMA-approved hazard-

mitigation plans: collaboration with several entities, public information and

awareness, evacuation, sheltering, provision for special needs populations,

terrorism, and technological hazards. These elements were selected based on the

assumption that their inclusion would lead to signif‌icant reduction in loss to life

and property after a disaster event. Mitigation helps to lessen the impact of

hazard events. The involvement of various levels of government and stakeholders

in the preparation of mitigation actions and strategies could reduce the impact of

hazard events on people, properties, and the environment. The mitigation action

section of a hazard-mitigation plan is peculiar to the jurisdiction and it is the part

of the hazard mitigation that would be implemented by individual jurisdictions.

Supposedly, actions in this section are selected by individual jurisdictions based

on their needs and the population composition. Several actions could be explored

with other jurisdictions and with the assistance of consultants or regional entities,

but the end result is what is selected as doable by the affected jurisdiction.

Specific Research Objectives

The main objective of this study is to f‌ind out the extent to which the required

elements of DMA2K were included in the hazard-mitigation plans of cities in

states that required elements of hazard mitigation in their comprehensive plans

when compared with cities in states that did not have such mandates. The

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