This Wildfire Prevention Guide is a project of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group. This is one in a series designed to provide information and guidance for personnel who have interests and/or responsibilities in fire prevention. Each guide in the series addresses an individual component of a fire prevention program. In addition to providing insight and useful information, each guide suggests implementation strategies and examples for utilizing this information. Each Wildfire Prevention Guide has been developed by Fire Prevention Specialists and subject-matter experts in the appropriate area. The goal of this series is to improve and enhance wildfire prevention programs and to facilitate the achievement of NWCG program goals.

Families trust schools to keep their children safe during the day. Thanks to the efforts of millions of teachers, principals, and staff across America, the majority of schools remain safe havens for our nation's youth. The unfortunate reality is, however, that school districts in this country may be touched either directly or indirectly by a crisis of some kind at any time. Natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, fires, and tornadoes can strike a community with little or no warning. An influenza pandemic, or other infectious disease, can spread from person-to-person causing serious illness across the country, or around the globe, in a very short time. School shootings, threatened or actual, are extremely rare but are horrific and chilling when they occur. The harrowing events of September 11 and subsequent anthrax scares have ushered in a new age of terrorism. Communities across the country are struggling to understand and avert acts of terror. Children and youth rely on and find great comfort in the adults who protect them. Teachers and staff must know how to help their students through a crisis and return them home safely. Knowing what to do when faced with a crisis can be the difference between calm and chaos, between courage and fear, between life and death. There are thousands of fires in schools every year, yet there is minimal damage to life and property because staff and students are prepared. This preparedness needs to be extended to all risks schools face. Schools and districts need to be ready to handle crises, large and small, to keep our children and staff out of harm's way and ready to learn and teach. Taking action now can save lives, prevent injury, and minimize property damage in the moments of a crisis. The importance of reviewing and revising school and district plans cannot be underscored enough, and Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities is designed to help you navigate this process. The Guide is intended to give schools, districts, and communities the critical concepts and components of good crisis planning, stimulate thinking about the crisis preparedness process, and provide examples of promising practices. This document does not provide a cookbook approach to crisis preparedness. Each community has its own history, culture, and way of doing business. Schools and districts are at risk for different types of crises and have their own definitions of what constitutes a crisis. Crisis plans need to be customized to communities, districts, and schools to meet the unique needs of local residents and students. Crisis plans also need to address state and local school safety laws. Experts recommend against cutting and pasting plans from other schools and districts. Other plans can serve as useful models, but what is effective for a large innercity school district where the population is concentrated may be ineffective for a rural community where schools and first responders are far apart.

The 2005 Fire Service Needs Assessment Survey was conducted as a stratified random sample survey. The NFPA used its own list of local fire departments as the mailing list and sampling frame of all fire departments in the US that report on fire incidents attended. In all, 15,545 fire departments - just over half the total in NFPA Fire Service Inventory (FSI) database, including all departments protecting communities of at least 50,000 population - were mailed survey forms, and 4,709 responded, for a 30% response rate. Because of time constraints, this second survey limited its second mailing to larger departments and states with unusually low response rates, whereas the first survey in 2001 had included a second mailing to all first-mailing non-respondents. This response rate is similar to the response rate in the 2001 survey's first mailing and is sufficient for reliable results at the national and state levels, overall and by community size. The second mailing to small states with low response rates had minimal impact on national estimates. The content of the survey was developed by NFPA in the 2001 survey, in collaboration with an ad hoc technical advisory group consisting of representatives of the full spectrum of national organizations and related disciplines associated with the management of fire and related hazards and risks in the U.S. The survey form was used without modification in order to maximize comparability of results and development of valid timelines.

Hurricane Ivan made landfall on Thursday, September 16, 2004, just west of Gulf Shores, Alabama. The hurricane brought sustained wind speeds, torrential rains, coastal storm surge flooding, and large and battering waves along the western Florida Panhandle and Alabama coastline. After landfall, Hurricane Ivan gradually weakened over the next week, moving northeastward over the Southeastern United States and eventually emerging off the Delmarva Peninsula as an extratropical low on September 19, 2004. On September 18, 2005, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) Mitigation Division deployed a Mitigation Assessment Team (MAT) to Alabama and Florida to evaluate building performance during Hurricane Ivan and the adequacy of current building codes, other construction requirements, and building practices and materials. This report presents the MAT's observations, conclusions, and recommendations as a result of those field investigations. Several maps in Chapter 1 illustrate the path of the storm, the depth of storm surge along the path, and the wind field estimates. Hurricane Ivan approximated a design flood event on the barrier islands and exceeded design flood conditions in sound and back bay areas. This provided a good opportunity to assess the adequacy of National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) floodplain management requirements as well as current construction practices in resisting storm surge and wave damage. FEMA was particularly interested in evaluating damages to buildings in coastal A Zones where V-Zone construction methods are not required. The recommendations in this report are based solely on the observations and conclusions of the MAT, and are intended to assist the State of Alabama, the State of Florida, local communities, businesses, and individuals in the reconstruction process and to help reduce damage and impact from future natural events similar to Hurricane Ivan. The report and recommendations also will help FEMA assess the adequacy of its flood hazard mapping and floodplain management requirements and determine whether changes are needed or additional guidance required. The general recommendations are presented in Sections 8.1 and 8.2. They relate to policies and education/outreach that are needed to ensure that designers, contractors, and building officials understand the requirements for disaster-resistant construction in hurricane-prone regions. Proposed changes to codes and standards are presented in Section 8.3. Specific recommendations for improving the performance of the building structural system and envelope, and the protection of critical and essential facilities (to prevent loss of function) are provided in Chapter 8. Implementing these specific recommendations, in combination with the general recommendations of Section 8.1 and 8.2 and the code and standard recommendations of Section 8.3, will significantly improve the ability of buildings to resist damage from hurricanes. Recommendations specific to structural issues, building envelope issues, critical and essential facilities, and education and outreach have also been provided. As the people of Alabama and Florida rebuild their lives, homes, and businesses, there are a number of ways they can minimize the effects of future hurricanes.

Floods, hurricanes, and other disasters can strike with little warning and damage or destroy irreplaceable art, artifacts, books, and historic records. But there are ways to prepare for emergencies and minimize the damage they inflict. Since the events of September 11, 2001, effective emergency management has become a higher priority for the cultural community. More institutions are interested in developing disaster plans, providing staff training, and better protecting their collections. Numerous federal programs now support such important efforts. Before and After Disasters: Federal Funding for Cultural Institutions is designed to help archives, arts centers, libraries, museums, historical societies, and historic sites find the resources they need. This guide is an updated and expanded version of Resources for Recovery: Post-Disaster Aid for Cultural Institutions, first developed in 1992 by Heritage Preservation and then revised in 2000. Before and After Disasters includes summary descriptions and contact information for 15 federal grant and loan programs - almost double the number of resources in the previous edition. It covers sources of federal assistance for preparedness, mitigation, and response, as well as for recovery. Sample projects in disaster planning, training, treatment research, and restoration illustrate the funding guidelines. Before and After Disasters: Federal Funding for Cultural Institutions is an initiative of the Heritage Emergency National Task Force. It was written and produced by Heritage Preservation with funding from, and in partnership with, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Endowment for the Arts as a service to the American cultural community.

The goal of the "Provisions" is to present criteria for the design and construction of new structures subject to earthquake ground motions in order to minimize the hazard to life for all structures, to increase the expected performance of structures having a substantial public hazard due to occupancy or use as compared to ordinary structures, and to improve the capability of essential facilities to function after an earthquake. The "Provisions" provides the minimum criteria considered prudent for the protection of life safety in structures subject to earthquakes. The "Provisions" document has been reviewed extensively and balloted by the architectural, engineering, and construction communities and, therefore, it is a proper source for the development of building codes in areas of seismic exposure. Some design standards go further than the "Provisions" and attempt to minimize damage as well as protect building occupants. The "Provisions" document generally considers property damage as it relates to occupant safety for ordinary structures. For high occupancy and essential facilities, damage limitation criteria are more strict in order to better provide for the safety of occupants and the continued functioning of the facility. Some structural and nonstructural damage can be expected as a result of the "design ground motions" because the "Provisions" allow inelastic energy dissipation in the structural system. For ground motions in excess of the design levels, the intent of the Provisions is for the structure to have a low likelihood of collapse. It must be emphasized that absolute safety and no damage even in an earthquake event with a reasonable probability of occurrence cannot be achieved for most structures. However, a high degree of life safety, albeit with some structural and nonstructural damage, can be achieved economically in structures by allowing inelastic energy dissipation in the structure. The objective of the "Provisions" therefore is to set forth the minimum requirements to provide reasonable and prudent life safety. For most structures designed and constructed according to the "Provisions," it is expected that structural damage from even a major earthquake would likely be repairable, but the damage may not be economically repairable. Where damage control is desired, the design must provide not only sufficient strength to resist the specified seismic loads but also the proper stiffness to limit the lateral deflection. Damage to nonstructural elements may be minimized by proper limitation of deformations; by careful attention to detail; and by providing proper clearances for exterior cladding, glazing, partitions, and wall panels. The nonstructural elements can be separated or floated free and allowed to move independently of the structure. If these elements are tied rigidly to the structure, they should be protected from deformations that can cause cracking; otherwise, one must expect such damage. It should be recognized, however, that major earthquake ground motions can cause deformations much larger than the specified drift limits in the "Provisions." Where prescribed wind loading governs the stress or drift design, the resisting system still must conform to the special requirements for seismic-force-resisting systems. This is required in order to resist, in a ductile manner, potential seismic loadings in excess of the prescribed loads. A proper, continuous load path is an obvious design requirement for equilibrium, but experience has shown that it often is overlooked and that significant damage and collapse can result. The basis for this design requirement is twofold: 1. To ensure that the design has fully identified the seismic-force-resisting system and its appropriate design level and 2. To ensure that the design basis is fully identified for the purpose of future modifications or changes in the structure.

During the past few decades, the number of large public warehouse stores (often referred to as big-box stores) across the nation has grown significantly, changing both consumer buying habits and the public's risk of injury during earthquakes. During an earthquake, occupant safety in a big-box store depends on both the structural performance of the building and on the performance of the storage racks and their contents. Earthquake ground motions can cause storage racks to collapse or overturn if they are not properly designed, installed, maintained, and loaded. In addition, goods stored on the racks may spill or topple off. Both occurrences pose a life-safety risk to the exposed shopping public. The immediate stimulus for the project that resulted in this report was a 2003 request from the State of Washington to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for guidance concerning the life-safety risk posed by the storage racks in publicly accessible areas of retail stores, especially the risk of rack collapse of loss of stored goods during an earthquake. FEMA asked the Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) to develop the requested guidance. To do so, the BSSC established a Rack Project Task Group composed of practicing engineers, storage rack designers, researchers, representatives of the Rack Manufacturers Institute (RMI) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association, and members of applicable technical subcommittees responsible for updating the NEHRP Recommended Provisions. In developing this guidance document, the Task Group focused primarily on steel single selective pallet storage racks. It reviewed available information on storage rack performance during earthquakes and the background on the development of standards and code requirements for storage racks; assessed seismic requirements for storage racks and current practices with respect to rack design, maintenance and operations, quality assurance, and post-earthquake inspections; and examined available research and testing data. Based on its study, the Task Group developed short-term recommendations to improve current practice and formulated long-term recommendations to serve as the basis for improved standards documents such as the NEHRP Recommended Provisions, ASCE 7, and the RMI-developed storage rack specification. Over the near term, the Task Group recommends that the 2003 NEHRP Recommended Provisions requirements for steel single selective pallet storage rack design be followed and that connections be checked in accordance with a procedure to be developed by RMI. The Task Group also recommends that additional guidance presented in this report be voluntarily adopted by store owners and operators. Further, given the fact that maintenance and use of storage racks is a key element to their acceptable performance during earthquakes, store owners and operators should adopt an appropriate quality assurance plan; as a minimum, the best self-imposed practices of store owners and operators should be maintained. The Task Group's primary long-term recommendation is that the RMI specification be brought into conformance with the 2003 NEHRP Recommended Provisions, which is the basis for seismic requirements found in current seismic design standards and model building codes. The Task Group also recommends that optional performance-based and limit state procedures and component cyclic testing procedures be incorporated into the RMI-developed specification. Compliance with these procedures will demonstrate that the storage racks have the capacity to resist maximum considered earthquake ground motions without collapse. It also is recommended that regulatory bodies periodically review the quality assurance programs of stores and implement any regulations needed to satisfy life-safety concerns that relate to the securing of rack contents and rack maintenance and use.

According to available information, landsliding in the United States causes an average of 25 to 50 deaths and $1 to $2 billion in economic losses annually. Although all 50 states are subject to landslide activity, the Rocky Mountain, Appalachian, and Pacific Coast regions generally suffer the greatest landslide losses. The costs of landsliding can be direct or indirect and range from the expense of cleanup and repair or replacement of structures to lost tax revenues and reduced productivity and property values. Landslide losses are growing in the United States despite the availability of successful techniques for landslide management and control. The failure to lessen the problem is primarily due to the ever-increasing pressure of development in areas of geologically hazardous terrain and the failure of responsible government entities and private developers to recognize landslide hazards and to apply appropriate measures for their mitigation, even though there is overwhelming evidence that landslide hazard mitigation programs serve both public and private interests by saving many times the cost of implementation. The high cost of landslide damage will continue to increase if community development and capital investments continue without taking advantage of the opportunities that currently exist to mitigate the effects of landslides. The widespread occurrence of landsliding, together with the potential for catastrophic statewide and regional impacts, emphasizes the need for cooperation among federal, state, and local governments and the private sector. Although annual landslide losses in the U.S. are extremely high, significant reductions in future losses can be achieved through a combination of landslide hazard mitigation and emergency management. Landslide hazard mitigation consists of those activities that reduce the likelihood of occurrence of damaging landslides and minimize the effects of the landslides that do occur. The goal of emergency management is to minimize loss of life and property damage through the timely and efficient commitment of available resources. Despite their common goals, emergency management and hazard mitigation activities have historically been carried out independently. The integration of these two efforts is most often demonstrated in the recovery phase following a disaster, when decisions about reconstruction and future land uses in the community are made. The development and implementation of landslide loss-reduction strategies requires the cooperation of many public and private institutions, all levels of government, and private citizens. Coordinated and comprehensive systems for landslide hazard mitigation do not currently exist in most states and communities faced with the problem. In most states, local governments often take the lead by identifying goals and objectives, controlling land use, providing hazard information and technical assistance to property owners and developers, and implementing mitigation projects as resources allow. State and federal agencies play supporting roles-primarily financial, technical, and administrative. In some cases, however, legislation originating at the state or federal level is the sole impetus for stimulating effective local mitigation activity. In many states there remains a need to develop long-term organizational systems at state and local levels to deal with landslide hazard mitigation in a coordinated and systematic manner. The development of a landslide hazard mitigation plan can be the initial step in the establishment of state and local programs that promote long-term landslide loss reduction. The purpose of this guidebook is to provide a practical, politically feasible guide for state and local officials involved in landslide hazard mitigation. The guidebook presents concepts and a framework for the preparation of state and local landslide hazard mitigation plans.

Lifelines (e.g., communication, electric power, liquid fuels, natural gas, transportation, water and sewer systems, etc.) are presently being sited in "utility or transportation corridors" to reduce their right-of-way environmental, aesthetic, and cost impacts on the community and on land use. The individual lifelines are usually constructed or modified at different time periods, resulting in their being built to different standards and in different siting criteria being applied to different segments of an individual lifeline or to different lifelines that provide similar functions. Presently, the siting review usually does not consider the impact of the proximity or collocation of one lifeline upon the risk to or vulnerability of other lifelines from natural or manmade hazards or disasters, either because the other lifelines have not yet been installed or because such a consideration has not been identified as a factor in the siting evaluation. In August 1988, a train derailment in northern California also damaged a petroleum pipeline which was buried along the railroad right-of-way. The result was a spill of the pipeline fluids in addition to the derailment (but no significant loss of property and no injuries to or casualties). When another derailment in San Bernardino occurred in May l989, which resulted in severe property damage and the loss of life, the Office of the Fire Marshall also responded to see if the derailment had impacted a petroleum products pipeline that was buried along the railroad right-of-way. It was decided that the pipeline was not damaged, and the fire and safety personnel turned over the site to the railroad to allow them to clean up the site. About a week later the pipeline ruptured and the resulting fire caused considerable property damage and loss of life. The subsequent investigations concluded that the pipeline may have been damaged during the derailment, but that the most probable cause of its damage was the derailment clean up operations. In a similar sense, communication lines along a highway bridge would be vulnerable to failure if the bridge were to displace or fail during a disaster event. In fact, frequently highway bridges and overpasses are used to route other lifelines, such as communications and pipelines, over causeways and water bodies. Such lifelines can be damaged by failure of the superstructure, bridge foundation movement, or ground deformation along the approaches to the bridge. Settlement and lateral displacement adjacent to abutments have been especially troublesome because such movements tend to impose deformations on the lifelines where they are locally constrained at the attachment or penetration of the abutment. There are many such examples of lifeline interdependency that occurred during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In response to these types of situations, FEMA is focusing attention on the use of such corridors, and they initiated this study to examine the impacts of siting multiple lifeline systems in confined and at-risk areas. The overall FEMA project goals are to develop, for multiple lifeline systems in confined and at-risk areas, a managerial tool that can be used to increase the understanding of the lifeline systems' vulnerabilities and to help identify potential mitigation approaches that could be used to reduce those vulnerabilities. The goals also are to identify methods to enhance the transfer of the resulting information to lifeline system providers, designers, builders, managers, operators, users, and regulators. To provide a specific example of how the managerial tool can be used, it was decided that the methods should be applied to the lifelines in the Cajon Pass, California, for an assumed earthquake event at the Pass. The purpose of this report is to provide an inventory of the major lifeline systems in the Cajon Pass and the earthquake and geologic analysis tools available to identify and define the level of seismic risk to those lifelines.

The Northridge earthquake of January 17, 1994, caused widespread building damage throughout some of the most heavily populated communities of Southern California including the San Fernando Valley, Santa Monica and West Los Angeles, resulting in estimated economic losses exceeding $30 billion. Much of the damage sustained was quite predictable, occurring in types of buildings that engineers had previously identified as having low seismic resistance and significant risk of damage in earthquakes. This included older masonry and concrete buildings, but not steel framed buildings. Surprisingly, however, a number of modern, welded, steel, moment-frame buildings also sustained significant damage. This damage consisted of a brittle fracturing of the steel frames at the welded joints between the beams (horizontal framing members) and columns (vertical framing members). A few of the most severely damaged buildings could readily be observed to be out-of plumb (leaning to one side). However, many of the damaged buildings exhibited no outward signs of these fractures, making damage detection both difficult and costly. Then, exactly one year later, on January 17, 1995, the city of Kobe, Japan also experienced a large earthquake, causing similar unanticipated damage to steel moment-frame buildings. Prior to the 1994 Northridge and 1995 Kobe earthquakes, engineers believed that steel moment-frames would behave in a ductile manner, bending under earthquake loading, but not breaking. As a result, this became one of the most common types of construction used for major buildings in areas subject to severe earthquakes. The discovery of the potential for fracturing in these frames called to question the adequacy of the building code provisions dealing with this type of construction and created a crisis of confidence around the world. Engineers did not have clear guidance on how to detect damage, repair the damage they found, assess the safety of existing buildings, upgrade buildings found to be deficient or design new steel moment-frame structures to perform adequately in earthquakes. The observed damage also raised questions as to whether buildings in cities affected by other past earthquakes had sustained similar undetected damage and were now weakened and potentially hazardous. In response to the many concerns raised by these damage discoveries, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sponsored a program of directed investigation and development to identify the cause of the damage, quantify the risk inherent in steel structures and develop practical and effective engineering criteria for mitigation of this risk. As the project progressed, interim guidance documents were published to provide practicing engineers and the construction industry with important information on the lessons learned, as well as recommendations for investigation, repair, upgrade, and design of steel moment frame buildings. Many of these recommendations have already been incorporated into recent building codes. This project culminated with the publication of four engineering practice guideline documents. These four volumes include state-of-the-art recommendations that should be included in future building codes, as well as guidelines that may be applied voluntarily to assess and reduce the earthquake risk in our communities. This policy guide has been prepared to provide a nontechnical summary of the valuable information contained in the FEMA/SAC publications, an understanding of the risk associated with steel moment-frame buildings, and the practical measures that can be taken to reduce this risk. It is anticipated that this guide will be of interest to building owners and tenants, members of the financial and insurance industries, and to government planners and the building regulation community.

An Emergency Action Plan (EAP) is one of the primary safeguards against the loss of life and property damage that can result from the failure of a high-hazard potential dam. Today, there are approximately 8,300 state-regulated high-hazard potential dams in the United States. Of these 8.300 dams, approximately 40 percent do not have an EAP. Since the establishment of the National Dam Safety Program in 1979, both the state and federal sectors have made significant progress in increasing the number of state-regulated high-hazard potential dams with EAP's. The dam safety community recognizes, however, that much more must be done to reach the goal established in January 2006 by the National Dam Safety Review Board: achieve 100 percent compliance for EAP's for high-hazard potential dams. When the National Dam Safety Review Board met in October 2005, the losses from Hurricane Katrina had just exposed significant failures in all aspects of the Nation's emergency mitigation, planning, and response. The failure of the emergency management system to respond quickly and effectively to the disaster brought to the forefront the need for all hazard areas, including dam safety, to refocus their attention on this critical requirement. For the dam infrastructure, the need for emergency action planning is heightened by the aging of dams in the United States. The 2005 Report Card for America's Infrastructure (American Society of Civil Engineers, March 2005) states that the number of unsafe or deficient dams in the United States has risen by more than 33 percent since 1998, to more than 3,500. To address these issues, the National Dam Safety Review Board established the Task Group on Emergency Action Planning and Response. The Task Group, which began its work in January 2006, recognized that the success of its effort would require the involvement of all of the sectors with an interest in its outcome. As a result, the sectors represented on the Task Group include state and federal dam safety professionals and engineers, the emergency management community, the security and protection community, and emergency response organizations. Appendix D includes the list of Task Group members. This document provides the Task Group's findings, recommendations, and strategies for significantly increasing the number of EAP's for state-regulated high-hazard potential dams.

Disaster preparedness became a renewed priority for our Nation as a direct response to the devastation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Following the tragedies of that day, government at all levels has embedded stronger collaboration with nongovernmental civic and private sector organizations and the general public in policies and practices. The Citizen Corps grassroots model of community preparedness has spread across the country, and Americans have been asked to become fully aware, trained, and practiced on how to respond to potential threats and hazards. To evaluate the Nation's progress on personal preparedness, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) Community Preparedness Division conducts Citizen Corps National Surveys to measure the public's knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors relative to preparing for a range of hazards. This report provides a summary of the findings from the 2009 Citizen Corps National Survey. The research objectives and survey questions for the Citizen Corps National Survey were developed based on previous research, preparedness modeling, and policy and guidance from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In 2003, Citizen Corps conducted a national survey to provide baseline data on individual preparedness for disasters. In 2007, the Citizen Corps National Survey was designed to incorporate additional areas of examination and to refine the questioning, while retaining several specific questions from the 2003 survey to provide trend data. The 2009 Citizen Corps National Survey includes several more small refinements. Comparisons between the findings from the 2003, 2007, and 2009 surveys are noted throughout the report. FEMA's Community Preparedness Division publishes the Citizen Preparedness Review to highlight specific areas of research regarding community preparedness and to summarize research findings from multiple sources. To assess the research landscape on preparedness, Citizen Corps has developed and maintains the Citizen Preparedness Surveys Database of surveys on personal and business preparedness conducted in the United States since September 11, 2001. As of August 2009, the database contains 102 surveys on individual preparedness, 29 surveys on business, and 11 surveys on school preparedness. Analyzing research from this wide variety of sources allows larger preparedness trends and research gaps to be identified. Citizen Preparedness Review Issue 3, Patterns in Current Research and Future Research Opportunities (published summer 2006), made several recommendations for future research that were taken into consideration in the development of the Citizen Corps National Survey implemented in 2007 and 2009. These recommendations included: More fully explore participants' knowledge of the correct preparedness measures and appropriate responses for different types of hazards; Investigate a more comprehensive range of knowledge, supplies, and skills related to disaster preparedness, such as knowledge of warning systems, evacuation routes, and training for specific skills; More fully explore motivational barriers to preparedness, such as the degree of uncertainty about ability to perform recommended measures or perceptions that recommended measures will not make a difference in disaster situations; Investigate demographic and contextual characteristics as they relate to preparedness including: prior experience with disasters, disability/ability factors, and community engagement; Examine individuals' preparedness in multiple locations in addition to their homes, such as the school, workplace, and community. An important finding from the Citizen Preparedness Surveys Database is that perceived preparedness can be very different from the specific preparedness measures taken. In nearly all cases, these surveys substantiate that the proportion of those who have taken appropriate preparedness measures is much lower than those that indicate that they are prepared.

In 1999, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) jointly conducted research and a workshop to shed light on the national problem of animal intrusion damage to earthen dams and the resulting safety issues. The FEMA/ASDSO survey and workshop united dam owners, engineers, state and federal regulators, wildlife managers, foresters, and academia to form an educated and experienced front against the growing problem of earthen dam damage and failures due to animal intrusion. The infor-mation generated by roundtable discussions and survey answers indicates that while most states recognize animal intrusion as a problem, only a handful know of guidance on dams and wildlife management practices available to the dam professionals and owners. Based on input from the dam communities, FEMA/ASDSO's mission to develop a guidance manual on the proper management of nuisance wildlife in the earthen dam environment became clear. To determine the information needs of the dam community-and therefore the most appropriate focus of this manual-FEMA/ASDSO issued a survey in 1999 and used the survey input from the 48 state dam safety officials representatives and 11 federal agencies representing the Interagency Committee on Dam Safety (ICODS). Additionally, a second survey was issued in 2003 to identify the current needs of each state, determine what nuisance wildlife and damages the states encounter, and understand which miti-gation methods are being used with success or failure. This manual provides technical guidance to dam specialists (including dam owners, operators, inspectors, state dam officials, and consulting engineers) in areas of focus identified through the two survey efforts and workshop. The purposes of this manual are to: Assist dam specialists in understanding the impacts wildlife can have on earthen dams; Provide dam specialists with basic information on habitat, range, description, and behavior of common nuisance wildlife to aid in their proper identification at the dam; Describe state-of-practice methods to prevent and mitigate adverse wildlife impacts on earthen dams. Provide state-of-practice design guidance for repair and preventive design associated with nuisance wildlife intrusion. It is envisioned that the entire dam specialist community will use this manual to augment their routine duties in earthen dam management. This manual is presented as a process toward dam inspection and management that includes wildlife damage identification and control. This manual provides technical information and guidance on: How wildlife damage adversely affects the safe operation of earthen dams; specifically, hydraulic alteration, internal and external erosion, and structural integrity losses (Chapter 2.0); Dam inspections that incorporate a biological component to sensitize dam specialists to the aspects of their dams that attract wildlife and to understand where nuisance wildlife are likely to occur on the dam (Chapter 3.0); Biological data for specific nuisance wildlife to assist the dam specialist in identifying which nuisance wildlife inhabits the dam. Biological data will also assist in controlling nuisance wildlife (e.g., listed food sources can be removed to encourage the animal to leave the area) (Chapter 4.0); Dam design specifications and methods that can be incorporated into repair of existing dams or new dam designs to prevent wildlife intrusions (Chapter 5.0); Guidelines to determine when wildlife management should occur at a dam (beyond dam repair and prevention actions) and wildlife management methods that can be implemented when control of specific nuisance wild-life populations is deemed necessary. Specific methods discussed include habitat modification, use of toxicants and fumigants, trapping, and shooting (Chapter 6.0); The fiscal issues related to appropriate and timely wildlife management at earthen dams (Chapter 7.0).

Blanco County, Texas has been awarded, under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Homeland Security Program Grant (HSGP) authorization to construct a three hundred (300) foot new communications tower, a total of three hundred twenty (320) feet with the planned attached antennae. This communications tower will enhance the interoperable communications among all first responder disciplines in response to terrorist attacks and during times of natural or man-made disasters. The HSGP provides grant funding to public safety agencies for the protection of critical communications infrastructure from terrorism, natural disasters and routine operations. HSGP supports the implementation of State Homeland Security Strategies to address the identified planning, organization, equipment, training, and exercise needs to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism and other catastrophic events. This Environmental Assessment (EA) has been prepared according to the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), as applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at 44 CFR Part 10. This section of the federal code requires that FEMA take into account environmental considerations when authorizing or approving actions, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act. This phased project, is a joint venture between Burnet (1,021 Sq. Mi.), Llano (966 Sq. Mi.) and Blanco (713 Sq. Mi.) Counties will build a P25 Regional VHF Digital Trunking Communications System that allows for a link back to the Austin Master Site Controller making it an element of a much larger Capital Area Council of Governments (CAPCOG) Regional Radio System. The terrain of the three counties consists of 2,700 Square Miles of rural, rugged hills, valleys, and lakes over the three county areas. The new system will increase coverage from nonexistent in numerous locations to approximately 94% AREA Portable Inbound coverage. The Project is being installed in Phases beginning with FY 2007 Grant Year thru FY 2010 Grant Year. The link back to the Austin Master Site Controller making it an element of a much larger CAPCOG Regional Radio System is being planned for FY 2011 Grant Year. This project will assist Burnet, Llano and Blanco Counties in completing our P25 Communications System for our CAPCOG Regional Interoperable project and is fully compliant with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) January 1, 2013 Narrowband mandate for VHF Frequencies. In support of the proposed project, the Blanco County Commissioners Court conducted a public meeting on August 9, 2011 that included discussions regarding the funding for the Round Mountain Tower site. The purpose of this EA is to analyze the potential environmental impacts of the proposed construction of a communications tower facility. FEMA will use the findings in this EA to determine whether to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI).

Experience with recent disaster recovery efforts highlights the need for additional guidance, structure and support to improve how we as a Nation address recovery challenges. This experience prompts us to better understand the obstacles to disaster recovery and the challenges faced by communities that seek disaster assistance. The National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF) is a guide to promote effective recovery, particularly for those incidents that are large-scale or catastrophic. The NDRF provides guidance that enables effective recovery support to disaster-impacted States, Tribes and local jurisdictions. It provides a flexible structure that enables disaster recovery managers to operate in a unified and collaborative manner. It also focuses on how best to restore, redevelop and revitalize the health, social, economic, natural and environmental fabric of the community and build a more resilient Nation. The NDRF defines: Core recovery principles; Roles and responsibilities of recovery coordinators and other stakeholders; A coordinating structure that facilitates communication and collaboration among all stakeholders; Guidance for pre- and post-disaster recovery planning; The overall process by which communities can capitalize on opportunities to rebuild stronger, smarter and safer. These elements improve recovery support and expedite recovery of disaster-impacted individuals, families, businesses and communities. While the NDRF speaks to all who are impacted or otherwise involved in disaster recovery, it concentrates on support to individuals and communities. The NDRF introduces four new concepts and terms: Federal Disaster Recovery Coordinator (FDRC); State or Tribal Disaster Recovery Coordinators (SDRC or TDRC); Local Disaster Recovery Managers (LDRM); Recovery Support Functions (RSFs). The FDRC, SDRC, TDRC and LDRM provide focal points for incorporating recovery considerations into the decisionmaking process and monitoring the need for adjustments in assistance where necessary and feasible throughout the recovery process. The RSFs are six groupings of core recovery capabilities that provide a structure to facilitate problem solving, improve access to resources, and foster coordination among State and Federal agencies, nongovernmental partners and stakeholders. The concepts of the FDRCs, SDRCs, TDRCs and RSFs are scalable to the nature and size of the disaster. The NDRF aligns with the National Response Framework (NRF). The NRF primarily addresses actions during disaster response. Like the NRF, the NDRF seeks to establish an operational structure and to develop a common planning framework. Fundamentally, the NDRF is a construct to optimally engage existing Federal resources and authorities, and to incorporate the full capabilities of all sectors in support of community recovery. The effective implementation of the NDRF, whether or not in the context of a Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Stafford Act) declaration, requires strong coordination across all levels of government, NGOs and the private sector. It also requires an effective, accessible public information effort so that all stakeholders understand the scope and the realities of recovery. The NDRF provides guidance to assure that recovery activities respect the civil rights and civil liberties of all populations and do not result in discrimination on account of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age or disability. Understanding legal obligations and sharing best practices when planning and implementing recovery strategies to avoid excluding groups on these bases is critical. The NDRF is a guide to promote effective recovery. It is a concept of operations and not intended to impose new, additional or unfunded net resource requirements on Federal agencies.