Speakers urge a unified approach to mitigating natural hazards

Abstract

On November 3, while wildfires consumed acres of coastal land in California, the U.S. Natural Hazards Symposium in Washington, D.C., addressed the threat of natural hazards in the United States, disaster mitigation and recovery, and the need to consider natural hazards in land development plans. Several of the scheduled speakers were unable to participate because they were called to California to investigate the fires, including keynote speaker James Witt, the new director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).Substitute keynote speaker Harvey Ryland, Witt's senior adviser at FEMA, emphasized that “we must sell mitigation as an effective means of protecting people and property.” He discussed FEMA's new “National Mitigation Strategy,” which will serve as the basis for its emergency management program. The strategy is expected to be in place by January 1995. As part of the approach, FEMA will establish a mitigation directorate to organize various disaster mitigation efforts in one office. Ryland also discussed the idea of creating risk reduction enterprise zones, designated high risk areas that would offer incentives to property owners who take proper mitigation measures. “Such incentives would be offset by reduced disaster assistance costs,” Ryland added.