The residential portion of the fire problem continues to account for the vast majority of civilian casualties. National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) estimates show that, while residential structure fires account for only 25 percent of fires nationwide, they account for a disproportionate share of losses: 83 percent of fire deaths, 77 percent of fire injuries, and 64 percent of direct dollar losses. Analyses of the residential structure fire problem were published formerly as a chapter in each edition of Fire in the United States. The most recent edition of Fire in the United States, the fourteenth edition published in August 2007, featured an abbreviated chapter on residential structures. This full report is the most current snapshot of the residential fire problem as reflected in the 2005 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) data and the 2005 NFPA survey data. In this report, as in previous chapters in Fire in the United States, an attempt has been made to keep the data presentation and analysis as straightforward as possible. It is also the desire of the United States Fire Administration (USFA) to make the report widely accessible to many different users, so it avoids unnecessarily complex methodology.

This report compiles the best practices and common problems of fire protection and criminal justice agencies in identifying, investigating, prosecuting, and preventing arson. Commonly, the crime of arson is motivated by spite and revenge. Perpetrators strike with fire at buildings where people live, work, or socialize-causing injury, property loss, and death. Civilians and firefighters alike die in arson fires every year. Thirty years ago, arson captured media attention because so-called arson-for-profit rings were burning down decaying urban neighborhoods that had ceased to be profitable, and then rebuilding them at a substantial profit. Other high-profile cases involved arsonists who were connected to gangs and drug lords, and who set fires to intimidate their rivals or as retribution for deals gone bad. Some of the most publicized cases occurred in the cities of New York, Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Baltimore, and others. There even were situations where neighborhood vigilantes, who were frustrated with crime and run-down buildings, took it upon themselves to torch structures to rid the neighborhood of vagrants, prostitutes, and drug dealers. Insurance companies were perceived as the main victims from intentional fires. As a crime com-mitted against property, the economics of arson played center stage to the less well-defined statistics on injuries and deaths. Since arson fires do, on average, cause proportionately higher losses than fires from other causes, insurance companies committed many resources toward investigation and control. From establishing tip reward programs, training accelerant detection canines (ADC's), supporting arson reporting immunity legislation, and establishing the property insurance loss register (PILR), the insurance industry was a strong partner at that time. There is a dichotomy between arson as a property crime and arson as a crime against people, and that lies at the heart of today's challenges with cases of arson. As a crime, arson's long-standing definition as the willful and malicious burning of property does not do justice to the fact that today arson is usually a personal crime that is directed intentionally against specific victims. It is time for arson to be dealt with as a violent crime against persons, not just a crime against property. Today, spite and revenge dominate as the motives in intentional property fires, especially where there are casualties. Revenge-minded arsonists torch nightclubs, occupied residences, hotels, and other settings where their intended victims, and often other innocent people, are injured and killed. First responders get injured or die battling these blazes and trying to save others. Even though a portion of incendiary fires are motivated by other reasons (e.g., excitement, economic relief, peer pressure, a cry for help, and so forth) most set fires happen because someone wanted to inflict harm on another person using fire as the weapon of choice. Fire investigation units from The U.S. Fire Administration's (USFA's) project indicated that spite and revenge were the most common motives behind incendiary fires. Among project sites from the past 5 years, spite and revenge ranked as the highest leading motives, when investigation units were queried about prevailing motives.

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 Sandy caused extensive human suffering and damage to public and private property. In response to this catastrophic event, Congress considered legislation to provide supplemental appropriations to federal disaster assistance programs. In addition, Congress considered revisions to the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (the Stafford Act, P.L. 93-288 as amended), which is the primary source of authorities for disaster assistance programs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). As a result, Congress passed the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013, which was included as Division B of the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013 (P.L. 113-2). Division A of P.L. 113-2 provided a $50.7 billion package of disaster assistance largely focused on responding to Hurricane Sandy. Additionally, Congress increased the National Flood Insurance Program's borrowing authority by $9.7 billion (from $20.725 billion to $30.425 billion) (P.L. 113-1). Both of these supplemental relief law are discussed separately in CRS Report R42869, FY2013 Supplemental Funding for Disaster Relief. This report analyzes the provisions of the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013. In general, these provisions amend the Stafford Act with a stated goal of improving the efficiency and quality of disaster assistance provided by FEMA. Briefly, the amendments to the Stafford Act include: Establishing a new set of alternative procedures for administering the Public Assistance Program, which provides assistance for debris removal and the repair and restoration of eligible facilities (Section 1102 of the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013); Authorizing FEMA to enter into agreements with private owners of multi-family rental properties to expand post-disaster housing resources (Section 1103); Revising the administration of the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, to include a possible advancement of 25% of grant funds (Section 1104); Directing the establishment of alternative dispute resolution procedures (including binding arbitration), building on FEMA's current appeals process, to resolve federal and state disagreements on costs and eligibility questions (Section 1105); Directing the creation of a joint process for environmental and historical review for disaster recovery projects with the goal of increasing the speed of the process (Section 1106); Directing FEMA to study, and report to Congress, whether it is appropriate to increase the dollar size of "small projects" eligible for simplified procedures (Section 1107); Including child care as an eligible expense under the "other needs assistance" provided in certain disasters (Section 1108(a)); Specifically authorizing the reimbursement of the base wages of government employees providing emergency work under certain circumstances (Section 1108(b)); Directing FEMA to update the factors considered when assessing the need for Individual Assistance in the declaration process (Section 1109); Authorizing the chief executive of a tribal government to directly request disaster or emergency declarations from the President, much as a governor can for a state (Section 1110); and Directing FEMA to create a comprehensive national strategy for reducing the cost of future disasters (Section 1111). Prospectively, the changes in law apply to disasters declared on or after the date of enactment, January 29, 2013. Further, support can be found in the text and legislative history of the bill for applying at least some of these amendments retrospectively to Hurricane Sandy-related disaster declarations. However, it is less clear whether, and to what extent, some of these revisions will apply to disasters declared before Hurricane Sandy.

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.

Following the two damaging California earthquakes in1989 (Loma Prieta) and 1994 (Northridge), many concrete wall and masonry wall buildings were repaired using federal disaster assistance funding. The repairs were based on inconsistent criteria, giving rise to controversy regarding criteria for the repair of cracked concrete and masonry wall buildings. To help resolve this controversy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) initiated a project on evaluation and repair of earthquake-damaged concrete and masonry wall buildings in 1996. The ATC-43 project addresses the investigation and evaluation of earthquake damage and discusses policy issues related to the repair and upgrade of earthquake-damaged buildings. The project deals with buildings whose primary lateral-force-resisting systems consist of concrete or masonry bearing walls with flexible or rigid diaphragms, or whose vertical-load-bearing systems consist of concrete or steel frames with concrete or masonry infill panels. The intended audience is design engineers, building owners, building regulatory officials, and government agencies. The project results are reported in three documents. TheFEMA306report, Evaluation of Earthquake Damaged Concrete and Masonry Wall Buildings, Basic Procedures Manual, provides guidance on evaluating damage and analyzing future performance. Included in the document are component damage classification guides, and test and inspection guides. FEMA 307, Evaluation of Earthquake Damaged Concrete and Masonry Wall Buildings, Technical Resources, contains supplemental information including results from a theoretical analysis of the effects of prior damage on single-degree-of-freedom mathematical models, additional background information on the component guides, and an example of the application of the basic procedures. FEMA 308, The Repair of Earthquake Damaged Concrete and Masonry Wall Buildings, discusses the policy issues pertaining to the repair of earthquake-damaged buildings and illustrates how the procedures developed for the project can be used to provide a technically sound basis for policy decisions. It also provides guidance for the repair of damaged components.

Britain and the world were shocked in October 1966 by live television pictures coming from a small mining village in Wales. They showed a human tragedy unfolding after thousands of tons of coal waste fell from a mountainside onto its primary school and surrounding houses. The majority of the 144 people killed were children under 12. After more than 50 years the survivors of that disaster -- among the worst in Britain's peacetime history -- still live with painful memories and all-too-real after effects. In this first ever oral history of the tragedy, people who were there tell their stories, some speaking publicly for the first time. Built around 27 extensive interviews, Surviving Aberfan is a story of official neglect and betrayal, horror and great sadness. But it also demonstrates how courage, hope and effort can rebuild a devastated community and move forward.

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 American Red Cross is the nation's largest nonprofit organisation involved in disaster relief. The organisation provides services such as sheltering and food assistance, and it has a leadership role in the federal disaster response framework. However, questions have been raised over its ability to respond effectively to large disasters. This book addresses the key factors affecting the nature and extent of the Red Cross's disaster services; how it coordinates with the federal government on disaster assistance; and what external oversight exists of its disaster services. Furthermore, the book provides a brief history of the charter of the American National Red Cross (ANRC); describes the recent congressional interest in the ANRC's governance, operations, and charter; reviews the ANRC's governance audit report and proposal to amend its charter; and describes recent congressional proposals to amend the charter.

On September 22, 1992, at the request of the Mayor of Kauai County, the Federal Coordinating Officer for the Iniki disaster tasked the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) Federal Insurance Administration (FIA) to assemble a team of experts to assess the performance of buildings. The team was tasked with surveying the performance of primarily residential structures under wind and water forces generated during Hurricane Iniki. The goal of this effort is to provide guidance and offer recommendations for reducing damage from future hurricanes. This goal is best met through learning from both failures and successes of building performance. During the field assessment, the team investigated primarily structural systems (i.e., systems in a building that resist lateral and vertical forces. For all buildings, the performance of exterior architectural systems, such as roofing, windows, and doors was analyzed. The analysis also included the effects of windborne and waterborne debris and the quality of construction and materials. The majority of building types observed were one- and two-story, wood-frame, single-family and multi-family residential structures. However, pre-engineered steel commercial and industrial buildings, as well as resort hotels and condominiums constructed of reinforced concrete and masonry, were also examined. This report includes detailed engineering discussions of building failure modes and successful building performance. It also provides detailed recommendations for enhancing building performance under hurricane and flood conditions.

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.