This lesson provides an examination of the Mitigation core capabilities.

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to describe core capabilities for Mitigation and actions required to deliver those capabilities.

As discussed in the first lesson, resilience requires the entire nation. The way we can measure, describe, and implement our security and resilience techniques is through core capabilities. These core capabilities are listed in the National Preparedness Goal and are classified under the five mission areas. They are highly interdependent and require us to use existing preparedness networks and activities, coordinate and unify efforts, improve training and exercise programs, promote innovation, and ensure that the administrative, finance, and logistics systems are in place to support these capabilities.

Before we take a closer look at the Mitigation core capabilities, let’s review the key characteristics of these capabilities.

The core capabilities:

• Are distinct critical elements necessary to meet the National Preparedness Goal.
• Are essential for the execution of each mission area: Prevention, Protection, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery.
• Provide a common language for preparedness across the whole community.
• Are not exclusive to any single level of government or organization and encompass the whole community.

Select this link to view the complete list of Core Capabilities.

As we begin to look at the core capabilities, it is important to understand that the National Preparedness Goal specifically defines each of the core capabilities. These definitions are used to determine the critical tasks for each capability.

As we examine each core capability, we will discuss those critical tasks that must be implemented to successfully deliver that core capability.

It should be noted that these critical tasks are not for any single jurisdiction or agency. Accomplishment of these critical tasks at all levels within whole community creates unity of effort and achieves national preparedness.

Three mitigation core capabilities span across all five mission areas:

• Planning
• Public Information and Warning
• Operational Coordination

Within each mission area, there are specific capabilities that are unique but not unrelated. Remember, each core capability under the specified mission area is intended to meet the National Preparedness Goal.

Let’s take a closer look at the three cross-cutting core capabilities, starting with Planning.

The Planning capability is described as conducting a systematic process engaging the whole community as appropriate in the development of executable strategic, operational, and/or tactical-level approaches to meet defined objectives.

Planning is vital to mitigation, whether it happens at the individual level; in neighborhoods, cities, regions, tribal communities or states; at the national level; or in groups that do not share the same geographic area. Within mitigation, planning is a systematic process that translates risk assessment data and information into prioritized goals and actions for the whole community.

Click this link to view the Mitigation Critical Tasks for Planning

• Embed risk-based decision making into the planning processes.
• Collaborate, cooperate, and build consensus across other disciplines that impact plans.
• Understand the demographics and systems that make up the community and their vulnerabilities and interdependencies with each other.
• Include disability and other access and functional needs subject matter experts in mitigation planning to address considerations, such as architectural accessibility through compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act architectural standards; disability and other access and functional needs advocacy organizations, such as independent living centers; and providers of disability and other access and functional needs-related assistance/functional needs support services. Also, understand the civil rights of service animal users, such as being able to use all parts of facilities the public uses without being separated from their service animals.
• Assess the full range of animal populations and potential issues they pose in the community; this will ensure that the jurisdiction is equipped to comprehensively address human and animal issues and take steps to mitigate vulnerabilities in this area before, during, or after a disaster.
• Incorporate the findings from the assessment of risk and disaster resilience into planning processes.
• Seek out and incorporate the whole community in planning efforts.
• Build on the expertise, knowledge, and systems in place within the community.
• Coordinate the planning and development of interconnected initiatives that may have geographic, functional, or funding connections.
• Share success stories where resilience-based planning has demonstrated measureable effectiveness in creating economic vitality within communities.
• Engage in a peer-to-peer and regional partnership (coalitions) mentoring structure that promotes best practices, particularly when the planning capability is not present in a community.
• Foster public-private partnerships to promote resilience and maximize the use of available resources.
• Promote planning initiatives through multiple media sources.

The Public Information and Warning capability is described as the delivery of coordinated, prompt, reliable, and actionable information to the whole community through the use of clear, consistent, accessible, and culturally and linguistically appropriate methods to effectively relay information regarding any threat or hazard, as well as the actions being taken and the assistance being made available, as appropriate.

The Public Information and Warning capability includes all information related to creating resilient communities. This capability provides a continuous flow of risk and hazard information to the whole community.

Providing information to the whole community builds consensus.

Click this link to view the Mitigation Critical Tasks for Public Information and Warning

Steady-state/Ongoing Operations

• Persuade the public that it is worthwhile to build a resilient community. Encourage private and public sector partners to work together to communicate the benefits of mitigation action and arrive at solutions.
• Increase awareness of the risks and the actions they can take to mitigate those risks through mechanisms like preparedness campaigns.
• Communicate priorities and actions identified through risk analysis and plans to stakeholders and those expected to take action to reduce risk.
• Refine and consider options to publicly release potentially sensitive risk information.
• Use social media, Web sites (e.g., Ready.gov), and smartphone applications, as well as more traditional mechanisms, such as community meetings, social networks, or diverse media outlets, to inform the public of actions to take to connect preparedness to resilience. Information and messaging should ensure effective communication with people who have disabilities or access and functional needs, including those who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, or have low vision, through the use of appropriate auxiliary aids and services, such as sign language and other interpreters and the captioning of audio and video materials. Target messages to reach organizations representing children, people with disabilities or access and functional needs, diverse communities, and people with limited English proficiency to ensure that the information is accessible and effective, so that people are able to understand and act on the information.
• Support and increase the number of communities that develop and share risk reduction products (e.g., building codes, design standards, floodplain management principles and practices, and architectural accessibility standards).

Incident-driven Operations

• Provide the tools necessary to make decisions quickly, such as a synchronization matrix that allows multiple leaders to make independent decisions.
• Share information obtained through coordinating activities to inform prevention, protection, response, and recovery decision making by effectively communicating threat and hazard risk analysis. Conduct outreach with atypical partners. Coordinate common messaging and verified source communications through local community leaders.
• Capitalize on the critical post-disaster window of opportunity and the media information cycle to influence public opinion to take steps toward future mitigation.

Change Management

• Address evolving risk perception and risk communication within a community.
• Practice science-based methods, such as community-based social marketing, to create behavior change.

The Operational Coordination capability is described as the establishment and maintenance of a unified and coordinated operational structure and process that appropriately integrates all critical stakeholders and supports the execution of core capabilities.

Incorporating mitigation efforts into everyday activities, as well as response and recovery efforts following disasters, requires operational coordination.

The Operational Coordination capability is fundamental to all the other mitigation capabilities and is necessary to build whole community resilience.

Click this link to view the Mitigation Critical Tasks for Operational Coordination

Steady-state/Ongoing Operations

• Establish procedures and build partnerships and coalitions across the whole community that emphasizes a coordinated delivery of mitigation capabilities.
• Identify mitigation roles and responsibilities and engage stakeholders across the whole community to support the information-sharing process.
• Recognize the complexity of various interest groups and integrate organizations across communities, including public-private partnerships.

Incident-driven Operations

• Emphasize mitigation technique integration into Incident Command System (ICS) planning cycles by command and general staff representatives and educate whole community partners.
• Use and leverage mitigation products and capabilities, such as the identification of threats and the assessment of risk, to support incident operations.
• Contribute to the situational awareness and a common operating picture for the entire Federal Government and for local, state, tribal, territorial, and insular area governments, as appropriate, in the event of a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other manmade disaster.
• Capitalize on opportunities for mitigation actions following disasters and incidents.

Change Management

• Adapt to evolving risks and changing conditions including those as a result of climate change.
• Look for ways to include new stakeholders in mitigation capabilities.

Mitigation actions to reduce long-term vulnerability include local plans and regulations (building codes).

Brunswick County, North Carolina ensured critical facilities protection at two feet above the 500-year flood elevation as opposed to the 100-year flood elevation.

New Hanover, North Carolina instituted clear guidelines for reducing development using land use regulations and development management tools limiting density to 2.5 units per acre or less in areas classified as conservation and placed a moratorium on the acceptance of rezoning requests in flood prone areas other than rezoning requests for less intense use.

Shoshone County, Idaho strongly links mitigation actions to existing community plans, such as the continued creation of defensible space around homes and neighborhoods to increase the success of fire fighters in the case of wildfire as per their 2002 Wildfire Mitigation Plan.

Mitigation actions to reduce long-term vulnerability include structural projects.

Louisville, Kentucky mandates development standards for buildings and assets in buildings targeting public earthquake-prone buildings for retrofit and the development of standards for structural sound and asset tie-down along with the promotion of earthquake insurance purchase.

Puyallap, Washington identified rationale for replacing concrete sidewalks with absorbent materials and consulted with other jurisdictions that already use absorbent materials. The city is assessing the long-term cost benefit of standard use of absorbent materials in place of concrete used in sidewalks, parking lots, etc., to reduce storm water runoff with the reduction in impervious areas.

Mitigation actions to reduce long-term vulnerability include natural systems protection.

Roseville, California mandates the updating of regulations to ensure the protection of natural resources within identified goals and objectives, such as the designation of 100-year floodplain as open space within the city’s general plan.

Additionally, the city instituted a goat-grazing program in the city’s open space and preserve areas for fire and invasive plant species management and native plant restoration.

Mitigation actions to reduce long-term vulnerability include education programs.

Seaside, California provides disaster preparedness and mitigation material to residents and business in both English and Spanish and in other languages as necessary.

Mitigation actions to reduce long-term vulnerability include preparedness and response actions.

Communities are encouraged to develop mutual aid agreements with adjacent and nearby communities and with the community’s county government to meet the community’s emergency response needs.

Baltimore, Maryland developed an excellent Hazard Mitigation Plan with comprehensive goals and actions. Baltimore also prioritized mitigation actions with respect to vulnerable populations the likelihood that many of the vulnerable populations would be in physically vulnerable places and ensured their access to flood insurance and appropriated warning information.

As shown on the table below, there are four capabilities that belong solely to Mitigation: Community Resilience, Long-term Vulnerability Reduction, Risk and Disaster Resilience Assessment, and Threats and Hazards Identification.

We'll take a closer look at these capabilities on the following screens.

Community Resilience requires leadership, collaboration, partnership building, education, and skill building. These four aspects of Community Resilience Capability are the skills that are required to build the capacity. Communities have to prepare for the risks that are most relevant to them by including the most relevant mitigation activities in plans.

Leadership: The ability to bring together a group that collaborates to make well-informed, timely decisions. Leaders need to demonstrate to community members the benefits of implementing change and then inspire community members to adopt a more resilient outlook.

Collaboration: A broad engagement and ongoing dialogue about threats and vulnerabilities and meaningful, sustained participation in community preparedness activities, planning, and decision making. Meaningful risk reduction measures will frequently include collaboration among private sector interests in community development, public sector or law enforcement interests in community safety, and various other interest groups, such as those representing children, seniors, and those with disabilities and others with access and functional needs.

Partnership Building: The establishment of long-term relationships—well before, during, and after incidents—that support ongoing communication and awareness building, decision making, and the implementation of plans and decisions. Mitigation capabilities are coordinated through partnerships at all levels of government with the private sector and nongovernmental organizations.

Education and Skill Building: Resilient communities utilize education and outreach tools to create opportunities that advance mitigation. By empowering individuals and communities with knowledge and skills, we build a collective understanding of our roles and responsibilities in crisis.

The definition of the Community Resilience core capability is to enable the recognition, understanding, communication of, and planning for risk and empower individuals and communities to make informed risk management decisions necessary to adapt to, withstand, and quickly recover from future incidents.

Community Resilience provides the initiative and energy to increase resilience in all the areas that make up a community including:

• Economic
• Health and social sciences
• Housing
• Infrastructure
• Natural and cultural resources

Click this link to view the Mitigation Critical Tasks for Community Resilience

Here are the critical community resilience tasks:

• Know the systems which make up the community and how to build constructive partnerships between those systems.
• Assess and understand the risks facing a community, including physical, social, cultural, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities to all threats and hazards and foster risk adaptive behaviors.
• Recognize and communicate the reinforcing relationships between environmental stewardship and natural hazard risk reduction (e.g., enhancement of flood storage through wetland protection/restoration and holistic floodplain management).
• Communicate and utilize the best available localized climate projections, so that the public and private sectors can make informed decisions about adaptation.
• Know the community’s permanent and transient population demographics and use that information to plan ahead to address resilience for the whole community, including people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs.
• Foster sustained communication, civic engagement, and the development and implementation of proactive planning, response, and long-term risk reduction actions in the whole community.
• Conduct community preparedness activities that empower individuals and communities with information and resources that facilitate actions to enhance their resilience and consider accessibility and cultural sensitivities based upon the community makeup.
• Promote mitigation and resilience to the public through preparedness campaigns to increase public awareness and motivate individuals to build societal resilience prior to an event.
• Promote neighborhood activities and encourage volunteerism that advances preparedness.
• Convince community members of the value of mitigation for reducing the impact of disasters and the scale of response and recovery efforts.
• Identify and promote sound choices and discourage choices that increase vulnerabilities and risks.
• Promote transparency in risk management decision making, so that individuals, communities, private organizations, and all levels of government demonstrate how resilience is considered.
• Recognize the interdependent nature of the economy, health and social services, housing infrastructure, and natural and cultural resources within a community.
• Acknowledge and seek out naturally occurring relationships within communities and build partnerships and coalitions before disasters or incidents occur.
• Educate the next generation of community leaders and resilience professionals; learn from the past and from what is working in the present.

Long-term vulnerability reduction involves building and sustaining resilient systems, communities, and critical infrastructure and key resources lifelines so as to reduce their vulnerability to natural, technological, and human-caused threats and hazards by lessening the likelihood, severity, and duration of the adverse consequences.

Click this link to view the Mitigation critical tasks for long-term vulnerability reduction.

Individual and Local Community

• Broaden the use of natural hazards and catastrophic insurance.
• Develop plans and recognize that a prepared individual or family is the foundation of a resilient community.
• Promote neighborhood activities and encourage volunteerism that advances preparedness awareness campaigns
• Incorporate mitigation measures into construction and development projects that take into account future conditions based on physical changes as well as climate change.
• Capitalize on opportunities during the recovery building process to further reduce vulnerability.

Private Sector

• Determine the level of appropriate risk reduction to incorporate in operational and capital improvement projects.
• Advance projects and activities that do not increase the residual risk in nearby neighborhoods and communities.
• Coordinate with government and community organizations to reduce duplication of effort and encourage complementary efforts.

Government

• Put community plans that include mitigation and resilience to work.
• Execute identified risk management actions and projects resulting from analysis and planning processes in the community.
• Make risk avoidance and reduction a priority in capital improvement projects.
• Adopt and enforce a suitable building code to ensure resilient construction.
• Adopt appropriate land use measures to limit development in hazardous areas commensurate with identified risk.
• Employ a variety of incentives, statutory and regulatory requirements, and voluntary initiatives to implement successful practices throughout communities.
• Be transparent and explicit about mitigation efforts in order to increase and sustain whole community investment, reduce duplication of effort, and encourage complementary efforts by partners.
• Establish standards and practices to reduce long-term vulnerability.
• Capitalize on opportunities during the recovery building process to further reduce vulnerability, including pausing to evaluate and update current codes, policies, and approaches to redevelopment.

The Kaweah River and its downstream branch the St. John’s River frequently flooded the community of Visalia, California over the years. Officials reached a decision to build a dam across the Kaweah River as it exits the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Terminus Dam on the Kaweah River creating the Kaweah Reservoir.

The dam serves three main purposes in order of priority – flood control, irrigation storage, and recreation. The primary purpose is flood control to mitigate flooding downstream along the Kaweah and St. John’s Rivers.

The building of the dam was the first step in developing long-term flood vulnerability reduction. The next step in accomplishing reduced flood vulnerability came when the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) had a freeway built through Visalia.

Keeping the flood vulnerability reduction in mind Caltrans had the freeway built below grade. The purpose of the below grade build was to act as a floodwater diversion and retention basin. The storm sewer system would divert storm water to the freeway away from the areas in Visalia more prone to flood. Traffic could continue to transit Visalia along the two one-way at grade frontage roads that parallel the freeway. Eventually, the below grade portion of the freeway was expanded west to create greater capacity in the long-term flood vulnerability reduction. The most recent step in further vulnerability reduction was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers installation of giant fusegates on the Terminus Dam that raised the retention capacity of the Kaweah Reservoir.

This example illustrates the critical task of incorporating mitigation measures into construction and development projects that take into account future conditions based on physical changes as well as climate change.

Risk and disaster resilience assessment involves assessing risk and disaster resilience so that decision makers, responders, and community members can take informed action to reduce their entity’s risk and increase their resilience.

Click this link to view the Mitigation critical tasks for long-term vulnerability reduction.

Data

• Share risk assessment data, both new and existing, to establish common operations across mission areas and standardized data requirements and guidance. Secure sensitive data as appropriate. Establish standard data formats to enable sharing of vulnerability data and risk assessment outputs.
• Provide the right data to the right people at the right time.
• Incorporate vulnerability data sets, such as population, demographic, infrastructure inventory and condition assessment information; climatological, geological, and environmental factors; critical infrastructure, lifelines, and key resources; building stock; and economic data to calculate the risk from the threats and hazards identified.
• Incorporate data from lessons learned and statistical information to target consideration of populations (such as for people with disabilities or access and functional needs, limited English proficiency populations, and racially, culturally, and ethnically diverse communities).
• Update risk assessments to include changes to the risks and the physical environment. This includes aging infrastructure, new development, new mitigation projects and initiatives, post-event verification/validation, new technologies or improved methodologies, and better or more current data.
• Create and maintain redundant systems for storing and protecting information and essential records.

Analysis

• Perform credible risk assessments using scientifically valid and widely used risk assessment techniques.
• Understand social and structural vulnerabilities.
• Incorporate knowledge gained by those who have experienced incidents to help understand all the interdependencies, cascading impacts, and vulnerabilities associated with threats and hazards.
• Validate, calibrate, and enhance risk assessments by relying on experience and knowledge beyond raw data or models.
• Develop analysis tools to provide information more quickly to those who need it and make use of tools and technologies, such as geographic information systems.
• Consolidate analysis efforts to remove useless duplication and provide a more uniform picture of the risks.

Education and Training

• Build the capability within communities to assess, analyze, and apply the knowledge of risk and resilience.
• Ensure that data users and assessment stakeholders get the best available data and understand the assumptions/estimations made in the methodology
• Train stakeholders to develop risk assessments and have the same accurate and comprehensive standards of assessment outputs.
• Use risk assessments to design exercises for response activities and to determine the feasibility of mitigation projects and initiatives.

The State of Oregon through a contract with Ecology and Environment, Inc., created a risk and disaster resilience assessment tool for decision makers, responders, and community members to use in the mitigation and reduction of their respective risks and increase their respective resiliencies to disaster.

The state used the FEMA Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment Guide, Comprehensive Preparedness Guidance 201 (http://www.fema.gov/plan), in developing their assessment tool. This assessment tool is broken down into the following sections:

• Planning
• Organization
• Equipment
• Training
• Exercises
• Global

The assessment tool asks a series of questions in each section that ask in a drop-down menu:

• Yes
• In-progress
• No

Decision makers, responders and community members can assess their respective risks and resiliencies based on the responses. This allows the decision makers, responders, and community members to determine the areas that need more focus in reducing their respective risks and increasing their respective resiliencies.

This best practice illustrates the critical task of performing credible risk assessments using scientifically valid and widely used risk assessment techniques.

This Mitigation core capability involves identifying the threats and hazards that occur in the geographic area; determine the frequency and magnitude; and incorporate this into analysis and planning processes so as to clearly understand the needs of a community or entity.

Click this link to view the Mitigation critical tasks for threats and hazards identification.

• Identify data requirements across stakeholders.
• Develop and/or gather required data in a timely and accurate manner in order to effectively identify threats and hazards.
• Deploy and maintain continuous, long-term hazards data collection systems.
• Ensure that the right data are received by the right people at the right time.
• Share appropriate data on natural, technological, and human-caused threats and hazards in a transparent and usable manner.
• Strike a proper balance between dissemination and classification of national security and intelligence information.
• Build cooperation among private and public sectors by protecting internal interests, but sharing threats and hazards identification resources and benefits.
• Leverage available third-party data, tools, and information; social media; and open-source technology.
• Translate data into meaningful and actionable information through appropriate analysis and collection tools to aid in preparing the public.

One best practice of the Threats and Hazards Identification capability is the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) guidance for incorporating Sea-level Change (SLC) consideration into all USACE water resources management projects.

It is likely that one of the biggest impacts of Sea-level Change (SLC) will be on storm surge. As sea levels increase, the starting point for storm surge will change, and could cause the impacts to be felt further inland and more frequently. There are several tools available including maps, models, and analysis that can be used to assess vulnerability and risk associated with SLC and storm surge. At the state and local level, especially in Florida, officials are considering SLC when it comes to planning for the future. This project will highlight the latest USACE guidance on SLC and describe some of the tools currently available to assess SLC and storm surge. Curves representing three potential future SLC scenarios will be developed for the St. Marys, St. Johns, and Suwannee Rivers and maps will be produced that show potential combined impacts of SLC and storm surge. The maps and information presented in this report are intended to be used for general planning purposes. More detailed modeling and mapping should be used for specific projects and detailed design work.

For more information, review the Sea-Level Change and Storm Surge Implications for Selected Inland Areas of Florida (http://silverjackets.nfrmp.us/State-Teams/Florida/Sea-Level-Change).

This best practice illustrates the critical task of developing and gathering required data in a timely and accurate manner in order to effectively identify threats and hazards.

We have reached the end of this lesson. In this lesson, we described the core capabilities for mitigation and actions required to deliver those capabilities. Specifically, we discussed:

• Cross-Cutting Core Capabilities
• Planning
• Public Information and Warning
• Operational Coordination
• Mitigation Core Capabilities
• Community Resilience
• Long-term vulnerability reduction
• Risk and disaster resilience assessment
• Threats and hazards identification

In the next lesson, we will take a closer look at the coordinating structures and operational planning used to support the Mitigation mission area.