Disaster and Hazards Resources

Reading Material

American Planning Association. Planning for a Disaster-Resistant Community. 2005.
This workbook from the Planning for a Disaster-Resistant Community AICP Workshop at the 2005 APA National Planning Conference contains information to help you learn about hazards and how they affect communities and how risk assessment is the fact base for mitigation planning. The workshop also explored linkages between risks and other community elements (e.g., housing, transportation). Case studies highlighted reasons for planning for disaster-resistant communities. Presenters discussed local requirements under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 and outlined deadlines, financial incentives, regional partnership approaches, and other practical considerations for community mitigation planning compliance.

Schwab, Jim. "Fixing the Future," Planning, August/September 2005

American Planning Association. Safe Growth America Checklist. 2004.
The goal of APA's Safe Growth America initiative is to build environments that are safe for current and future generations of people and to protect structures, transportation and utility infrastructures, and the natural environment from damage. Damage may result from natural hazards, technological hazards, or other risk factors. Wise land-use and transportation decisions, adoption and enforcement of appropriate design standards, increased participation and accountability, and resource conservation may make development and redevelopment safer. The American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), the professional institute of APA, prepared the Safe Growth America Checklist to facilitate discussion about safety and about actions that might enhance safety in a neighborhood.

BASF. A White Paper on Sustainable Redevelopment of the Gulf Coast. 2005.

Cohen, Natalie R. "The Impacts of Natural Disasters on Municipal Finance," Public Investment News. March 1996.
Recent large natural disasters including the Midwest Floods of 1993 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992 depleted municipal budgets and virtually drained the National Flood Insurance Program. Disasters do, however, trigger local spending and construction, and local governments have taken a more comprehensive approach to disaster planning and to building cash reserves to handle emergencies.

Schwab, Jim. "Post-Disaster Zoning Opportunities," Zoning News. August 1998.
Rebuilding after a disaster poses special challenges and opportunities for reshaping the pattern of land use and development in a community. Existing economic trends are often accelerated, for better or worse, and planners need to understand how to plan for those opportunities in order to achieve objectives of hazard mitigation and economic development. This article examines the experiences with such planning in Nags Head, North Carolina, and Arkadelphia, Arkansas, the former facing hurricane dangers and the latter having suffered a major tornado that tore through part of the downtown. It examines the use of an overlay district in Arkadelphia for managing design considerations in the rebuilt downtown and adjacent residential areas and highlights the town's reconstruction design principles in a sidebar.

Steinberg, Michelle, and Raymond Burby. "Growing Safe," Planning. April 2002.
Local plans can be a powerful tool for protecting communities from natural hazards from fire, flood, earthquake or hurricane. Find out how your community measures up.

Litman, Todd. Lessons From Katrina and Rita: What Major Disasters Can Teach Transportation Planners.
This September 2005 paper from Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute examines failures in Hurricane Katrina and Rita emergency response and their lessons for transportation planning in other communities. Katrina's evacuation plan functioned relatively well for motorists but failed to serve people who depend on public transit. Rita's evacuation plan failed because of excessive reliance on automobiles, resulting in traffic congestion and fuel shortages. Equitable and compassionate emergency response requires special efforts to address the needs of vulnerable residents. This paper identifies various policy and planning strategies that can help create a more efficient, equitable and resilient transport system.

Further Resources

Deyle, Robert E., Charles C. Eadie, Jim Schwab, Richard A. Smith, and Kenneth C. Topping. Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction, PAS Report 483/484. 1998.
This is the first all-hazards guidance manual for local planners developing plans for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. It includes a model ordinance and case studies of five different hazard scenarios — flood, earthquake, tornado, wildfire, and hurricane. The report also offers planning tools for managing long-term community recovery after a natural disaster.

Click here to download Chapter 5, "A Planner's Tool Kit"

Johnson, Laurie, Laura Dwelley Samant, and Suzanne Frew. Planning for the Unexpected, PAS Report 531. 2005.
Typical plans include only about half of the elements necessary for a safe, hazard-resistant community. How does your plan stack up? Does it manage environmental, capital, economic, social, and institutional risks? Can it adapt to emerging risks? This report describes the tools planners have to identify and manage risks related to land use.

Training Courses

American Planning Association

• Planning for a Disaster-Resistant Community is offered at APA National Planning Conferences every year. The materials for the course are available are available in the Reading Materials above. You can also schedule this one-day training workshop at your organization.
• Central America-Caribbean Site Planning Training is a Spanish-language training manual on proper site planning that focuses on the nations of Central America and the Caribbean that were ravaged by Hurricanes Mitch and Georges in 1998.

Emergency Management Institute (part of FEMA)
The EMI offers a variety of training programs. "Instruction focuses on the four phases of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. EMI develops courses and administers resident and non-resident training programs in areas such as natural hazards (earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, dam safety), technological hazards (hazardous materials, terrorism, radiological incidents, chemical stockpile emergency preparedness), professional development, leadership, instructional methodology, exercise design and evaluation, information technology, public information, integrated emergency management, and train-the-trainers."

Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder
The Natural Hazards Center compiles calendars of training available and a library of hazards resources.

Web Resources

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
FEMA, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, provides many resources for hazard planning and mitigation for both natural and man-made hazards. Starting points for more information include:

• Mitigation Planning
• Library for Preparation & Prevention; planning and preparing resources
• Best Practices & Case Studies

FEMA provides a detailed set of guides as a result of the Disaster Mitigation Act 2000 passed by Congress that requires local communities to address local hazards to be eligible for certain FEMA disaster funds. The State and Local Mitigation Planning How-To Guide series can help communities integrate risk assessments with local planning. These include:

• Building Support for Mitigation Planning
• Understanding Your Risks: Identifying Hazards and Eliminating Losses
• Developing the Mitigation Plan – Identifying Mitigation Action and Implementation Strategies
• Bringing the Plan to Life: Assuring the Success of the Hazard Mitigation Plan
• Integrating Human-Caused Hazards into Mitigation Planning

National Incident Management System
The National Incident Management System (NIMS) was developed by the Secretary of Homeland Security at the request of the President. NIMS integrates effective practices in emergency preparedness and response into a comprehensive national framework for incident management.

AmericaSpeaks
AmericaSpeaks engages citizens in the public decisions that impact their lives. Designs and facilitates large-scale town meetings on public policy issues. Features history, design, projects and articles.

GIS and Maps

ESRI
Free GIS, data, hardware and map resources from ESRI providing information about and to the affected areas on the Gulf Coast.

Historic Preservation and Disaster Recovery Resources

1000 Friends of Florida, the Division of Historical Resources (DHR), at the Department of State, and the Division of Emergency Management at the Department of Community Affairs
The website contains several case studies of disaster planning for historic resources. It includes the manual "Disaster Planning for Florida's Historic Resources."

American Association of Museums, Museum Security Network, Disaster Preparedness Bibliography
Although some references on this bibliography are old, this is a thorough bibliography of published materials on disaster preparedness and recovery. The materials listed are not available online.

Federal Preservation Institute

• The Federal Preservation Institute's information resources for historic properties threatened by floods.

FEMA's Environmental, Historic Preservation, and Cultural Resources Program

• Hurricane Katrina Information and Resources for Historic Properties and Cultural Resources
• eLearning Tool for the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program instructs how to complete the grant application for planning preparation.
• How-To Guide #6: Integrating Historic Property and Cultural Resource Considerations into Hazard Mitigation Planning

Florida Department of Community Affairs

• Long-Term Hurricane Recovery pages outline Florida's response to 2004 hurricanes.

Heritage Emergency National Task Force
"The Heritage Emergency National Task Force was formed in 1995 to help libraries and archives, museums, historical societies, and historic sites better protect their collections and buildings from natural disasters and other emergencies." The website contains a list of links to other useful sites with online information for how to respond to emergencies.

• The task force has been working with FEMA in the aftermath of Katrina. Click here to find resources for historic preservation after hurricanes.

Louisiana National Register of Historic Places
Find an online list of properties on the National Register of Historic Places at www.crt.state.la.us/nhl2/searchby.asp. Each record contains information including the site's level of significance and area of significance, as well as documents, pictures, and maps.

Minnesota Historical Society
"Thinking About the Unthinkable: A Disaster Plan For Historic Properties in Minnesota" is a useful online manual provides detailed information on what to do when disasters strikes your historic buildings, districts, and archaeological sites.

National Park Service

• After the Flood: Emergency Stabilization and Conservation Measures
• The Seismic Retrofit of Historic Buildings: Keeping Preservation in the Forefront
• National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) — Located in Natchitoches, Louisiana, NCPTT advances the use of science and technology in historic preservation.

National Trust for Historic Preservation
The website contains up-to-date information and news of actions being taken by the National Trust in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Click here for the website's earthquake resources page.

This site also offers a technical leaflet and provides guidance on the repair of storm-damaged historic properties. Click here for those resources.

North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office
This excellent site is for historic property owners and includes information on how to address problems such as drying out the building, restoring landscape, and other useful information.