Effective damage assessment begins with effective planning. Planning for incidents will allow you to respond efficiently with a thorough and accurate damage assessment. It is imperative that the damage assessment be done well. Poor damage assessment may weaken or delay the response effort, create inaccurate loss reporting, establish inappropriate priorities, have a negative environmental impact, delay the Presidential disaster declaration process, or result in denial of Federal recovery funds.

In this lesson, you will learn how to plan a damage assessment program. Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to:

• Identify potential members of the local damage assessment planning team.
• List common steps for planning a damage assessment program.
• List planning assumptions for creating a damage assessment plan.
• Describe guidelines for establishing local standards for damage assessment.

It is important for those preparing the damage assessment plan to understand what a plan is and what it is not. The plan should contain checklists and some basic Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), but it is not intended to prescribe specific details of exact reactions, because all events are different. It should contain methods for conducting damage assessment, but it is not intended to be followed like a script. Rather, managers and responders need to be able to make decisions based on the plan guidance and the situation assessment. It should specify the roles and responsibilities of the damage assessment response team members, as well as their assigned zones, but in a large event, these team members may be asked to perform beyond those specifications.

The damage assessment plan is a starting point providing the necessary guidance with the flexibility to react based on the event specifics and the result of assessment information rather than assumptions used in the planning process.

The basic elements that should be considered prior to an event include:

• Identification of all possible emergencies through risk assessment
• Evaluation of the impact of all risks to the community through a hazard vulnerability assessment
• Identification of public policy, legal issues, and ordinances
• Coordination of effort with all stakeholders participating
• Evaluation of available and needed resources, based on risk and hazard vulnerability assessments
• Evaluation of communication and public information procedures
• Understanding of public health and public safety issues
• Identification of training and exercise opportunities

Keep in mind that every community is different; therefore, the demographics and particular needs of your community must be considered when planning for damage assessment.

Narrator

The process of developing the damage assessment plan is as important as having the plan on the shelf. The research involved is invaluable, as are the relationships that are formed during the creation of the document.

Although there is not a standard process you must use, some common steps for planning a damage assessment program are shown on the graphic.

The first step in the damage assessment planning process is to identify the team responsible for planning efforts, including the coordinating agency or department that will be responsible for ensuring that the plan is created (and maintained). This responsibility often falls to the emergency management agency. However, other agencies, such as the building inspection agency, can also be considered to oversee this activity.

Next, you will need to identify the local damage assessment planning team members and assign their roles. The first role to be determined should be the Damage Assessment Coordinator, who oversees the entire damage assessment program.

The planning team may include a variety of stakeholders, who could be personnel from Emergency Management, public works and utilities, other first responders (e.g., fire, law, EMS), Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (VOADs), building officials, Geographic Information System and Information Technology (GIS/IT) teams, administrators from local schools (particularly if schools are used as shelters), representatives from critical/essential facilities, agents from nonprofit agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local realtors and property appraisers staff, and/or the healthcare community.

Click on the highlighted text to learn more about identifying stakeholders.

After the planning team has been established, the members must gather a great deal of information in order to prepare for the rest of the damage assessment planning process.

The team must gather a great deal of information to consider when developing the plan such as:

• Risk and vulnerability assessment data
• Reports and analysis data
• Other existing plans
• Functional roles and responsibilities
• Jurisdictional responsibilities
• Resources
• Inventory of goods and supplies
• Forecasts and warning systems
• Maps and geographical boundaries

The success of the planning process will partly depend on the accuracy and amount of information obtained and readily used by local planners. While the information gathering may seem tedious, it is a critical step for a successful planning process.

Using information gathered during the previous step, you need to consider certain planning assumptions to be included in the damage assessment plan:

• Priorities: life, property, and the environment
• Resources: people, equipment, and tools
• Type of jurisdiction
• Need for additional resources or technical expertise (e.g., mutual aid, Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), private resources, State/Federal resources)
• Warnings available
• Need for coordination between local agencies, neighboring jurisdictions, and Tribal governments (if applicable)
• Evacuation and sheltering (procedures and facilities) or other support
• Activation of emergency management
• Pre-identified risks and vulnerabilities (from the hazard analysis)

Planning assumptions can range from “The prompt and accurate assessment of damage is vital.” to “County resources will be available as indicated in this plan.” By including these and other assumptions as a part of your damage assessment plan, you document the starting point from which the plan is developed.

It’s important to identify, in the planning process, the zones that damage assessment response team members will inspect after a hazard event, so these teams will already be familiar with their zones and can rapidly deploy or be pre-positioned to conduct damage assessment.

In identifying zones for your damage assessment program, use the zones that already exist in your community and that are also used for hazard vulnerability assessments. For example, you could use public works snow plow zones or any other zones that your municipality has established. GIS layers could be used to help divide the area and to designate zones. Remember to take into consideration that some of these zones may cross jurisdictional lines.

Your plan should establish local, defined standards for damage assessment. These standards must be legally defensible and in accordance with any higher level guidelines and/or State requirements. They should also be in a readable format and be developed in accordance with recognized processes established by coordinating agencies and oversight agencies.

For example, the American Red Cross and FEMA use a 4-point system for evaluating damage assessment, as shown in the table.

If your community would like to use a more detailed system, be sure to provide a correlation to the 4-point system. For example, Manatee County, Florida, uses a 10-point damage assessment scale. It corresponds to the 4-point system, but provides more detail. Links to more information about these damage assessment scales are available in the Toolkit.

When establishing your local standards, be sure to design data collection procedures according to resources available. Your team should decide as a part of the planning process whether the forms should be in electronic or paper format. Remember, if you use electronic forms, you should always have paper backups available. Sample forms for each method are provided in the Toolkit, but they should be modified to fit the needs of your community. Make sure all team members have the most recent most accurate forms when you go out to do the damage assessment.

Click this link to view the Manatee County example 10-point scale. (https://review.c2ti.com/FEMA%20LCMS/IS0559/lesson3/assets/01_03_110.pdf)

Click this link for information about FEMA’s Preliminary Damage Assessment (PDA) 4-point methodology and how it corresponds to the damage states in HAZUS-MH. (https://www.fema.gov/use-hazus-mh-support-individual-assistance-program)

The damage assessment program may need to be modified from time to time, as new information becomes available, new infrastructure becomes a part of the community, new hazards are identified, and lessons are learned. So, part of the planning process is establishing procedures for maintaining the plan.

Changes in systems, policies, technology, resources, personnel, and risk/vulnerability require adjustments to the plan. These changes can range from documenting near misses as a means to evaluate effectiveness, to updating forms and data so you are ready when an event occurs. It is important to modify training and exercises so they suit current risk and hazard vulnerability assessment data. You should build in specific opportunities for periodic review (recommended at least annually) to ensure that your plan is always current. This will allow your team to respond in the most effective and efficient ways possible.

In this lesson, you learned about the steps for planning a damage assessment program. First, you must identify the local damage assessment planning team, including identification of the primary agency responsible for creating and maintaining the plan. This step also includes identification of a Damage Assessment Coordinator to oversee the program.

Second, members of the local damage assessment planning team gather information to be used in the development of the plan.

Third, you should determine plan components and assumptions such as priorities, resources (including the need for acquiring more resources), and the need for multi-agency or multi-jurisdictional coordination.

Next, you should identify damage assessment zones, using the same zones as are used for hazard vulnerability assessments. Then, you will establish local standards for damage assessment that are legally defensible and in accordance with any higher level guidelines and/or State requirements. Finally, you must establish procedures for maintaining the plan as changes occur and lessons are learned.

Click this link to view a list of all items provided in the Toolkit for this lesson.

The following resources were referenced in this lesson and are provided in the Toolkit.

Sample Documents:

• FEMA’s Preliminary Damage Assessment (PDA) 4-point methodology
• Manatee County, Florida, 10-point system for damage assessment
• Damage assessment forms