LMS Guidebook Supplement, Vulnerability
Assessment, Part 2
INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE
The Florida Department of Community Affairs, in partnership with the State’s local governments and private sector organizations, has established a comprehensive program to reduce community vulnerability to all types of disasters. Initiated in the spring of 1998, Florida has now established a statewide, permanent process of community-based, hazard mitigation planning. The major component of this program is the preparation of county "Local Mitigation Strategies," which define what must be done in each community to minimize or avoid the impacts of future disasters. Each strategy is developed and maintained by a "Working Group" of public and private sector officials.
To support this process, the Department of Community Affairs has issued several guidance documents, including "The Local Mitigation Strategy: A Guidebook for Florida Cities and Counties." This guidebook provides recommendations on how to develop the Local Mitigation Strategy, and defines the components of the local program that need to be implemented.
The Department has also issued a two-part supplement to the guidebook that specifically addresses an approach to the vulnerability assessment process. The vulnerability assessment is a major planning step that is necessary to develop an effective Local Mitigation Strategy.
Part One of the Vulnerability Assessment Supplement provides guidance on how to identify all types of hazards threatening the community, how to define the vulnerabilities to those hazards, and how to estimate the risk posed. This document is Part Two of the supplement, and it recommends an approach to using the results of the vulnerability assessment in the development of the Local Mitigation Strategy itself.
Part Two bridges the initial technical efforts suggested in Part One, which defined the community’s vulnerabilities, with the actual identification, definition, and prioritization of "mitigation initiatives" to minimize or eliminate those vulnerabilities. These initiatives can be both structural and non-structural projects and programs, and they constitute the principal element in each county’s Local Mitigation Strategy.
A step-wise approach to developing mitigation initiatives
For many of Florida’s counties, the process of identifying all possible mitigation initiatives can mean a very extensive and potentially complex effort. The Department recommends that a step-by-step approach will make development of the Local Mitigation Strategy easier and more comprehensive, and will assure that it has addressed the community’s important vulnerabilities to future disasters.
The suggested process includes six key steps that will enable the Working Group to progress from knowing what its communities’ vulnerabilities are, to defining and prioritizing what can be done to reduce them. Each of these six steps is discussed in detail in the following sections of Part 2. Larger, more urbanized counties could have, potentially, thousands of initiatives that would make the community more disaster resistant. Following these steps will focus the Working Group’s efforts on the most important vulnerabilities to address. For more rural counties, a step-wise approach will also provide assurances that critical vulnerabilities are not being overlooked.
The six-step process suggested in the following sections relies on the completion of the vulnerability assessment effort recommended in the Guidebook and Part One of the Supplement. As the hazard identification and vulnerability assessment data becomes available, the Working Group is ready to initiate the process outlined here.
Step 1 - Reviewing the Hazard and Vulnerability Data
Step 2 - Focusing the Vulnerability Assessment
Step 3 - Defining Specific Mitigation Initiatives
Step 4 - Estimating the Benefits and Costs of an Initiative
Step 5 - Prioritizing Mitigation Initiatives
Step 6 - Incorporating the Initiatives into the Strategy