The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000: 20 Years of Mitigation Planning

Kathy Smith, AICP, Planning and Safety Branch Chief shares her
views on the importance of�the 20th anniversary of the Disaster
Mitigation Act of 2000. 

Communities have long engaged in planning for public safety
and future growth. But Congress recognized the need to support
a new kind of planning that would help state, tribal, territorial
and local communities understand and reduce their vulnerability to
natural hazards. This shift to focusing on pre-disaster planning
was made formal in the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. This law
was signed on Oct. 30, 2020, and amended the Robert T. Stafford
Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Stafford Act).
FEMA is celebrating the anniversary and legacy of the Disaster
Mitigation Act of 2000 throughout October and November.

Before the act was signed, emergency managers’ planning
usually focused on preparing for and responding to disasters, which
help people during hazard events. After the act passed, emergency
managers began using a more proactive planning process. Leading
their communities through that process resulted in
FEMA-approved hazard mitigation plans. This planning was aimed
at reducing the impacts of disasters before they occurred.
Emergency managers began to use a more holistic, collaborative
process for hazard mitigation plans. They involved a wider range of
partners, from sectors such as housing and infrastructure.
Mitigation plans brought together people from emergency management
and community development. They encouraged community-specific
blueprints for proactively reducing risks and vulnerabilities.

This kind of plan is required to receive certain types of FEMA
assistance. But participants found that the plans could be
useful for much more than that.

As with most new initiatives, the first iteration of mitigation
plans simply tried to meet the requirements in regulation and

FEMA’s “Blue Book†(2004). The plans’ contents rarely
reflected each community’s unique needs. However, with a
requirement for updates every five years, future versions grew and
evolved with the communities and were refocused on priorities to
match the times. Today, these are foundational documents to help
ensure disaster responses are locally executed, managed by the
state, territory or tribal governments, and federally
supported.

Through the years, FEMA provided more
guidance and training. This helped states, locals, tribes and
territories develop more effective hazard mitigation plans. Lessons
learned across the nation were paired with hands-on assistance and
how-to resources to help communities plan. The result is hazard
mitigation planning that is more inclusive and plans with
actionable strategies. The plans became tools to prepare and
protect states, tribes, territories and local communities from the
impact of disasters and natural hazard events.

Twenty years later, many communities are updating their hazard
mitigation plan for the fourth or fifth time. Increasingly, they
are integrating elements of mitigation planning with other plans,
such as comprehensive or economic development plans. Local
communities are using them to decide where and how to build. The
plans include using current disaster-resistant building codes.
Communities are adding land use, wildfire protection, climate
adaptation and fields such as public health to their mitigation
planning. Take Massachusetts,
which combined its hazard mitigation and climate adaptation plans
into one strategy. Or Manitou
Springs, Colorado, which uses hazard mitigation as a factor in
its growth and development choices. This is a testament of the
power of planning to reduce risk.

FEMA’s National Mitigation Planning Program celebrates this
landmark legislation. As we do so, we work to elevate and support
effective planning. We engage with partners early and often,
support plan integration and implementation of actions using a wide
range of public and private resources. Effective planning leads to
completed mitigation projects, including non-structural actions.
FEMA continues to help communities as they work to become safer and
more resilient. To see a clear picture of the long-term impact
nationwide, take a look at the
timeline.

Graphic

FEMA is celebrating the anniversary and legacy of the Disaster
Mitigation Act of 2000 this October and November. For more
information about the law, visit the FEMA website. For
resources to support mitigation planning and your hazard mitigation
plan, visit the Hazard
Mitigation Planning page.

In addition, the 2020 Fiscal Year funding cycle for the Hazard
Mitigation non-disaster grants is accepting applications until Jan.
29, 2020. As a FEMA-approved Hazard Mitigation Plan is required for
funding, review the eligible projects for funding for a Flood
Mitigation Assistance and the new pre-disaster mitigation
program
Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities.