The boggling arms of FEMA.

• Author: Moore, Melissa
• Position: Federal Emergency Management Agency

Anchorage has been targeted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to participate in a program designed to reduce impact in the event a natural disaster strikes. But are the costs of joining in too high?

When a natural disaster hits, those in its path are usually not pre pared. it happens every year, wreaking havoc on towns, businesses and the people it touches: A hurricane strikes Florida. A tornado plows through Kansas. An earthquake levels California.

The price can be high when Mother Nature displays her wrath. And everybody pays - either through higher insurance premiums or loss of wages and revenue.

During the past decade, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reported paying about $20 billion to communities for repairing and rebuilding efforts caused from natural disasters.

By working together with select cities from each state, including Anchorage, FEMA hopes to whittle down that figure by implementing Project Impact, a nationwide program that helps communities protect themselves through preventative measures before disaster strikes.

The project originally started last fall with seven communities across the country, including Seattle, Wash. and Oakland, Calif. Local governments there worked directly with FEMA to look for ways to protect themselves from the harsh effects of nature.

Using a grant from FEMA, and with funds raised locally, each community determined which areas needed to be studied and what preventive measures could be taken to reduce damage. In Oakland, for example, student and AmeriCorps volunteers went into the homes of more than 150 low-income and elderly residents and secured heavy objects, making them safer in the event of an earthquake. In nearby Berkeley, home owners who want to retrofit their property to better withstand earthquakes can have permit fees waived.

Since the initial implementation, at least one community from all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico have been asked to participate in the program. Anchorage, too, has been invited to join in the project, but officials at the Emergency Management Office said there are still too many...