Developing the Mitigation Plan

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has developed this series of mitigation planning "how-to" guides to assist states, tribes, and communities in enhancing their hazard mitigation planning capabilities. These guides are designed to provide the type of information states, tribes, and communities need to initiate and maintain a planning process that will result in safer and more disaster-resistant communities. These guides are applicable to states, tribes, and communities of various sizes and varying ranges of financial and technical resources. The how-to guides cover the following topics: Getting started with the mitigation planning process, including important considerations for how you can organize your efforts to develop an effective mitigation plan (FEMA 386-1); Identifying hazards and assessing losses to your community, tribe, or state (FEMA 386-2); Setting mitigation priorities and goals for your community, tribe, or state and writing the plan (FEMA 386-3); Implementing the mitigation plan, including project funding and maintaining a dynamic plan that changes to meet new developments (FEMA 386-4); Evaluating and prioritizing potential mitigation actions through the use of benefit-cost analysis and other techniques (FEMA 386-5); Incorporating special considerations into hazard mitigation planning for historic structures and cultural resources (FEMA 386-6); Incorporating mitigation considerations for manmade hazards into hazard mitigation planning (FEMA 386-7); Using multi-jurisdictional approaches to mitigation planning (FEMA 386-8); and Finding and securing technical and financial resources for mitigation planning (FEMA 386-9). This third guide in the state and local mitigation planning how-to series is about developing your community's mitigation strategy and documenting the planning process. It builds on the resources and organizational framework discussed in Getting Started: Building Support for Mitigation Planning (FEMA 386-1) and the results of the loss estimation conducted according to Understanding Your Risks: Identifying Hazards and Estimating Losses (FEMA 386-2). This guide provides you and your planning team with the tools necessary to develop mitigation goals and objectives, identify and prioritize mitigation actions, formulate an implementation strategy, and assemble the planning document.