ResilienceBolstering pre-disaster resilience significantly reduces post-disaster recovery cost
A new study finds that the federal government spends six times more on post-disaster disaster recovery efforts than on helping communities become more resilient to extreme weather which is predicted to become more intense and frequent. The study, citing Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimates, calculates that for every $1 invested in “pre-disaster” mitigation, the cost of damage from extreme weather is reduced by $4.
A new study finds that the federal government spends six times more on post-disaster disaster recovery than on helping communities become more resilient to extreme weather which is predicted to become more intense and frequent in a warming world.
The study comes from the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress (CAP), which says that since the federal government “woefully underfunds” such efforts, the solution would be to create a fund for “community resilience” which will be supported by higher levies on fossil fuel production.
“We must help communities enhance their ability to withstand the high winds, flood waters, scorching heat, searing wild fires, and parched earth from extreme weather,” says the CAP analysis, which was released Wednesday.
The Hill reports that CAP, citing Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimates, calculates that for every $1 invested in “pre-disaster” mitigation, the cost of damage from extreme weather is reduced by $4.
The report notes that between fiscal 2011 and 2013, the federal government spent $22 billion on resilience efforts compared to $136 billion on disaster relief during the same period.
“Revenue that should be targeted to resilience is too often diverted to disaster recovery or falls victim to shortsighted austerity measures such as the budget sequester. The federal government could save additional lives and money by increasing assistance to communities to help them address their resilience needs,” the report says.
“To that end, we recommend the creation of a dedicated fund for community resilience with annual revenue equal to one-third of the total federal disaster relief and recovery spending from the previous three years,” it adds.
The report estimates that applying that formula to fiscal 2013 would yield $7 billion for the resilience fund.
The report also urges an “annual and complete accounting of federal funds spent on every disaster-recovery program in the previous fiscal year.”
“Such an accounting would enable public officials and everyday citizens to better understand the true cost to taxpayers of unchecked extreme weather,” the report states.
The report says that one way to use post-disaster recovery funds more effectively would be to “ensure that future rebuilding paid for with federal recovery funds increases community resilience to future extreme weather, even if the new structures are more costly.”
— Read more in Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman, Pound Foolish: Federal Community-Resilience Investments Swamped by Disaster Damages (Center for American Progress, 19 June 2013)
