A wide range of threats and hazards can cause an incident and result in damage that needs to be repaired.

For an Emergency Declaration, an incident is defined as any instance that the President determines warrants supplemental emergency assistance to save lives and protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe.

For a Major Disaster Declaration, an incident is defined as any natural catastrophe, or regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion.

FEMA organizes threats and hazards into three groups, so they can be better understood and addressed. They are:

• Natural hazards, which result from acts of nature
• Human-caused incidents, which result from the intentional actions of an adversary
• Technological hazards, which result from accidents or the failures of systems and structures

• Repair of roads, bridges, and associated features, such as shoulders, ditches, culverts, lighting, and signs
• Mitigation examples:
• Adding a headwall and wing walls to an existing culvert after a flooding event to prevent future damage to the road surface
• Increasing the size of a culvert to prevent future overtopping/washout of the culvert

• Repair of drainage channels, pumping facilities, and some irrigation facilities
• Repair of levees, flood control dams, and flood control
• The eligibility of these facilities is dependent upon the Applicant providing documentation to establish the pre-disaster capacity and maintains the facility on a regular schedule
• Mitigation examples:
• Elevating equipment and controls of pumping facilities above flood elevations
• Placing riprap at an irrigation canal to prevent a washout

• Repair or replacement of buildings, including their contents and systems, heavy equipment, and vehicles
• Mitigation examples:
• Building floodwalls around buildings to prevent flooding
• Reinforcing buildings with shear walls to withstand seismic forces in an earthquake

• Repair of water treatment and delivery systems, power generation facilities and distribution facilities, sewage collection and treatment facilities, and communications
• Mitigation examples:
• Elevating sewer system access covers to the hydraulic grade line
• Replacing flooded pumps with submersible pumps

• Repair and restoration of parks, playgrounds, pools, cemeteries, mass transit facilities, beaches, and marinas
• This category is also used for any work or facility that cannot be adequately characterized by Categories C-F
• Mitigation examples:
• Elevating filter and pump equipment for pools
• Replacing wood piers or hardening with steel bumpers

It is good practice to implement mitigation measures that fully address the hazard that caused the damage to the facility. Mitigation measures for a damaged facility don't have to be limited to addressing only the specific components of the facility that were damaged.

Constructing floodwalls around damaged facilities

• Installing new drainage facilities (including culverts) along a damaged road
• Dry floodproofing both damaged and undamaged buildings that contain components of a system that are functionally interdependent

Components that could be damaged but aren't immediately apparent:

• Electrical systems, insulation, flooring

Measures that can be taken to prevent or reduce damage:

• Wet-proofing, dry-proofing, installation of backflow devices
• Hurricane straps (roof-framing and walls), securing roof sheathing, anchoring ancillary structures to their foundations
• Strengthening window glass, installing hurricane shutters
• Replacing gable vents, reinforcing entry doors

Other hazards the above mitigation methods are effective against:

• Flooding, storm surge, hydrodynamic forces, debris impact forces, high winds

Advantages of bioengineering solutions are:

• Low cost and lower long-term maintenance cost than traditional methods;
• Low maintenance of live plants after they are established
• Environmental benefits of wildlife habitat, water quality improvement and aesthetics
• Improved strength over time

Bio-engineering includes the use of vegetation in civil engineering construction. It also extends to environmental modifications such as:

• Surface soil protection
• Slope stabilization
• Watercourse and shoreline protection
• Windbreaks
• Vegetation barriers (including noise barriers and visual screens)
• The ecological enhancement of an area

Think about what types of damage your community could sustain during an incident. What measures can you take in advance to prepare for and mitigate future damage?

Now consider what kinds of repetitive losses you sustain. These are areas where mitigation could benefit your community.

It is also worth trying to mitigate hazards that have only happened once, since an incident that's happened before could recur in the future.

To learn more about hazard mitigation program development, you can explore the following resources:

• FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance page
• FEMA Earthquake Mitigation Handbook
• FEMA Flood Mitigation Handbook
• FEMA Hurricane Mitigation Handbook
• FEMA Wildfire Mitigation Handbook
• E0871: Maximizing Mitigation
• E0239: 406 Hazard Mitigation
• Program Delivery Manager
• 406 Specialist
• State or Local Floodplain Manager
• State Mitigation Officer
• Neighboring Communities
• State Historic Preservation Officer
• Academic Institutions
• Environmental nonprofits such as:
• Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
• EDA Environmental