Disaster Resilience: Living with our Environment

Chapter 13 Answer Key

 Identify a sense of community and social linkages

 Understand what people need and want to know

 Emphasize the benefits of personal actions rather than risk alone

 Lead people to consider helping those more vulnerable than themselves

 Start with small actions that are easy to adopt

 Connect probabilities and data to people’s lives.

22. The time immediately following a natural disaster may provide a community with a unique window of opportunity for inserting an ethic of resilience in guiding development and redevelopment in high-risk areas. With forethought and planning, communities that are rebuilt in the aftermath of a natural hazard can be built back so that they are more resilient to future hazards, breaking the cycle of hazard-destruction-rebuilding. At the same time, the community is given the opportunity to incorporate other attributes of sustainability into its second chance development, such as energy efficiency, affordable housing, walkable neighborhoods, use of recycled building materials, reduction of water use, and environmental protection.

Some of the changes that occur in the routine business of a community after a disaster include:

 Hazard awareness increases: immediately following a disaster event, people become personally aware of the hazards that can beset the community and the extent of the impact. In other words, suddenly it becomes real.

 Destruction occurs: In some cases, the disasters will have done some of the work already. For example, a tornado, earthquake, or fire may have damaged or destroyed aging, dilapidated, or unsafe buildings or infrastructure.

 Community involvement increases: A disaster forces a community to make decisions, both hard and easy. Community involvement and citizen participation in policy formation often increase after a disaster.

Chapter 13 Answer Key

 Help arrives: Technical assistance and expert advice become available to a disasterimpacted community from a variety of state, federal, regional, academic, and nonprofit sources.

 Money flows in: Financial assistance becomes available from state and federal government agencies, both for private citizens and the local government for disaster recovery and mitigation projects; insurance claim payments can also provide a source of funds for recovery and mitigation work.

 Hazard identification changes: Sometimes a hazard may change a community’s assessment of where hazard areas are located. A disaster may provide opportunities to update flood maps, relocate inlet zones, re-establish erosion rates, modify oceanfront or seismic setback regulations, and change other indicators of vulnerability to reflect actual hazard risks based on new conditions.

Chapter 13 Test

Name:

Date:

Multiple-Choice, True/False

Below are 15 Multiple-Choice, True/False questions. Choose the best answer. Each question is worth 4 points for a total of 60 points:

1. While hazards are a function of the natural world, vulnerability to disasters is a function of a. human action and behaviors b. local and state planners c. mother nature d. federal government a. thousand b. million c. billion d. trillion

2. During the decade between 2000 and 2009, 54 weather and climate disaster exceeded $1 , compared with 27 such events between 1980 and 1989.

3. Former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, explained that building a culture of disaster prevention is difficult due to the fact that: a. climate change impacts are uncertain b. the benefits of taking action lie in the future c. only wealthy countries are able to mitigate hazards d. none of the above a. 2 b. 4 c. 8 d. 16

4. Research about the value of mitigation suggests that for every dollar invested in mitigation, dollars are saved.

Chapter 13 Test

5. Which of the following is a communication strategy to help the public understand and take actions to reduce risk?

a. Emphasize the benefits of personal actions rather than focusing on risk alone b. Lead people to consider helping those more vulnerable than themselves c. Start with small actions that are easy for people to adopt d. All of the above a. porous surfaces b. impervious surfaces c. mall construction d. all of the above a. Green infrastructure b. Organic c. Bio-engineering d. Natural living a. National Climate Assessment b. State Climatologists c. Climate Data Initiative d. All of the above

6. As watersheds are developed, the increase in , such as pavement and rooftops, causes more water from a storm to run off the land’s surface into the drainage system and streams, and usually at a faster pace, than was the case before development.

7. is a method of using natural areas and ecological systems as a form of infrastructure to mitigate hazards and enhance the ecological health of an area.

8. Which of the following resources provides information that planners or emergency managers could use to incorporate the best available data during a risk assessment?

Chapter 13 Test

9. Every state has a State Hazard Mitigation Officer who provides support to local communities carrying out mitigaiton planning. True or False?

10. Both the Netherlands and the United States build flood protection systems that predict communities up to the 100-year storm event. True or False?

11. Due to mitigation efforts implemented around the United States, disaster losses have declined significantly over the last few decades. True or False?

12. A major obstacle to implementing hazard reduction measures involves the public’s misunderstanding of risk and the fact that most people do not want to believe that their community will ever experience disaster. True or False?

13. Each type of nonprofit environmental organization pursues its own priorities, but many of their objectives may overlap with local or state management goals for hazard mitigation in environmentally sensitive or ecologically fragile lands. True or False?

14. Some communities choose to model and plan for their flood risk based on the assumption that the land will be developed at a future time within the watershed. True or False?

15. ―No advere impact‖ refers to the concept that regulations about floodplain management should not negatively impact property values. True or False?

Chapter 13 Test

Short Answer

Below are 5 Short Answer questions. Each question is worth 4 points for a total of 20 points:

16. The U.S. is conducted every ten years and is a valuable source of information about demographic trends in the United States.

17. Disaster is defined as the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events.

18. Effective risk is an important role of emergency managers, because the public often do not want to believe that their community will ever experience a disaster.

19. is a software developed by FEMA to provide potential damage and loss estimates for earthquake, hurricanes, and flooding.

20. If a given property has a 1% chance of flooding in any given year, it is typically described as being within the

Chapter 13 Test

Essay

Below are 2 Essay questions. Answer each question using complete sentences. Each question is worth 10 points for a total of 20 points:

21. Imagine you are an emergency manager leading a campaign to increase the number of residents with active flood insurance policies. Describe what strategies and messages you would use in outreach materials and presentations.

22. While no communities ever want to experience a disaster, explain why the aftermath of such an event is an important and valuable time to prioritize hazard mitigation.