Natural hazard mitigation in Southern California

support for local governments that struggle with these issues would be been in place (Nelson &
French 2002).

Disaster relief

If an hazard event causes losses that exceed the state’s capability to respond to and recover
from, the governor of that state can request a ‘presidential declaration’ from the president. If
the request is approved, the hazard event is a declared disaster and FEMA will then provide
funds for disaster relief to the affected states. The costs of this disaster relief aid are enormous.
In 1992, hurricane Andrew caused damages of over $25 billion, and FEMA appointed $1.64
billion in disaster aid. In 1993, the Midwest Floods caused at least $12 billion in damages, and
FEMA appointed $875 million in disaster aid. In 1994, the Northridge earthquake caused
damages of $20 billion, and FEMA appointed $3.3 billion in disaster aid. The funds for this
disaster relief come from various programs, including the National Flood Insurance Program
and the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Godschalk 1999,
Briechle 1999).

During the last decade, there have been one or more of these disasters almost every year.
Because of the immense costs, FEMA is slowly changing its policy. Pre-disaster mitigation is
more cost-effective and prevents losses of all sorts. Because of this, FEMA has slowly begun
to expand the coverage of the Stafford Act and the NFIP to pre-disaster mitigation measures.
FEMA is also changing the policies on who is eligible for disaster relief. In the National
Mitigation Goal, FEMA states that “those who knowingly choose to assume greater risk must
accept responsibility for that choice” (Godschalk 1999, p. 12) and in the future can be excluded
from disaster aid. The same holds true for households that did not purchase natural hazard
insurance. They too can in the future be excluded from disaster aid. Before individuals can be
held completely responsible for their decision to live in a high-risk area, it is necessary to
increase public awareness and ensure full hazard disclosure. For now, FEMA will focus on
these necessities before introducing this new policy of personal responsibility (Godschalk
1999).

Structural mitigation projects

The most important mitigation funding programs are the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program
HMGP, and the National Flood Insurance Program NFIP. Both the HMGP and the NFIP were
originally meant for post-disaster relief. The HMGP stems from the sections 404, 406 and 409

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