Restoration is about restoring what was damaged to the way it was before. Disaster restoration improves the condition so that things are actually better than they were before the damage occurred, but at the very least, the goal is to return conditions to a pre-disaster state.
Restoration can take weeks or even months, depending on the severity of the disaster. This process is not as urgent as mitigation, which must be done in the immediate aftermath of the event. Regardless, successful restoration is dependent upon quick and complete mitigation.
Disaster mitigation Atlanta is the cornerstone of emergency management. It’s the ongoing effort to lessen the impact disasters have on people and property. Mitigation involves keeping homes away from floodplains, engineering bridges to withstand earthquakes, creating and enforcing effective building codes to protect property from hurricanes, and more.
Mitigation is defined as “sustained action that reduces or eliminates long-term risk to people and property from natural hazards and their effects.” It describes the ongoing effort at the federal, state, local and individual levels to lessen the impact of disasters upon our families, homes, communities and economy.
Mitigation is an investment in your community’s futuresafety and sustainability.
Mitigation planning helps youtake action now, before a disaster, to reduce impactswhen a disaster occurs. Hazard mitigation planninghelps you think through how you choose to plan,design, and build your community and buildspartnerships for risk reduction throughout thecommunity.
Mitigation planning includes the following elements:
Public Involvement – Planning creates a way to solicit and consider inputfrom diverse interests, and promotes discussion about creating a safer, moredisaster-resilient community.Involving stakeholders is essential to buildingcommunity-wide support for the plan. In addition to emergency managers,the planning process involves other government agencies, businesses, civicgroups, environmental groups, and schools.
Risk Assessment – Mitigation plans identify the natural hazards and risksthat can impact a community based on historical experience, estimate thepotential frequency and magnitude of disasters, and assess potential losses tolife and property. The risk assessment process provides a factual basis forthe activities proposed in the mitigation strategy.
Mitigation Strategy – Based on public input, identified risks, and availablecapabilities, communities develop mitigation goals and objectives as part ofa strategy for mitigating hazard-related losses. The strategy is acommunity’s approach for implementing mitigation activities that are cost effective, technically feasible, and environmentally sound as well asallowing strategic investment of limited resources.
Mitigation planning process is as important as the resulting plan because it encourages communities to integrate mitigation with day-to-day decision-making regarding land use planning, floodplain management, site design, and other functions.
An earthquake is a sudden release of energy that createsa movement in the earth’s crust. Most earthquake-relatedproperty damage and deaths are caused by the failureand collapse of structures due to ground shaking. Thelevel of damage depends upon the extent and duration ofthe shaking.
90% of the casualties are caused by house collapse. Hence, saving the lives in earthquakes means focusing on prevention of building collapse. Similarly, in floods, most of the deaths are because of drowning in fast flowing or turbulent waters. Reducing loss of life by floods is possible by preventing or minimizing the extent of water flow or keeping people out of the track of potential water flow.
Mitigation is planned after studying the elements at risk. Saving human life is of the highest priority in mitigation plans, followed by those of animals. Next comes safety of crops, infrastructure, and other elements at risk. Identification of elements most at risk indicates priorities for mitigation.
A disaster management plan is a preventative plan designed to reduce the harmful effects of a disaster like a hurricane or extreme storms.
Disaster management plans are all about planning ahead. You have to think about what could go wrong in a disaster and develop protocols to address those issues.
By creating a disaster management plan ahead of time, before a disaster strikes, you can prepare your organization to meet a disaster as it comes. You’ll minimize the waste of time and resources that are all too precious after a disaster.
Above all, you need to put people first.
Creating a successful disaster management plan is all about remembering your priorities. If you prioritize employee safety, developing a plan should come easily.
Disaster restoration companies are prepared and adopted by communities with the primary purpose of identifying, assessing, and reducing the long-term risk to life and property from hazard events.
Effective mitigation planning can break the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage. Hazard mitigation plans can address a range of natural and human-caused hazards. They typically include four key elements: 1) a risk assessment, 2) capability assessment, 3) mitigation strategy, and 4) plan maintenance procedures. Plans can be developed for a single community or as a multi-jurisdictional plan that includes multiple communities across a county or larger multi-county planning region. While most hazard mitigation plans are prepared as stand-alone documents, they can also be developed as an integrated component of a community’s local comprehensive plan. Ninety-five percent of Colorado’s population resides in a community that has adopted a local hazard mitigation plan.
Types of Mitigation:
Avoidance means mitigating an aquatic resource impact by selecting the least-damaging project type, spatial location and extent compatible with achieving the purpose of the project. Avoidance is achieved through an analysis of appropriate and practicable alternatives and a consideration of impact footprint.
Minimization means mitigating an aquatic resource impact by managing the severity of a project’s impact on resources at the selected site. Minimization is achieved through the incorporation of appropriate and practicable design and risk avoidance measures.
Compensatory Mitigation means mitigating an aquatic resource impact by replacing or providing substitute aquatic resources for impacts that remain after avoidance and minimization measures have been applied, and is achieved through appropriate and practicable restoration, establishment, enhancement, and/or preservation of aquatic resource functions and services.
