Emergency Action Planning for State Regulated High-Hazard Potential Dams - Findings, Recommendations, and Strategies (FEMA 608 / August 2007)

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.