Personal Preparedness

The Parallel to Community Preparedness

Personal preparedness should mirror the mitigation and preparedness phases of comprehensive emergency management. This suggests individuals should first conduct a personal risk assessment, followed by engaging in appropriate mitigation activities. A personal risk assessment, like a community risk assessment, involves the steps of identifying all hazards, analyzing them in terms of probability and potential impact upon the individual, then prioritizing the risks. To a large extent, this activity will replicate the risk assessment conducted by local government for the community, which makes it a valuable resource for individuals in preparing themselves. While a community risk assessment can be a source of information on the potential impacts of specific hazards on the community as a whole, individuals will have to reinterpret it based on their own property and circumstances. For example, the location, elevation, and condition of personal dwellings may increase or decrease the risk for each individual.

Mitigation at the personal level will closely parallel the efforts of community level mitigation, which can take structural or nonstructural approaches. Structural approaches to mitigation for individuals may include building homes and workplaces that are resistant to specific threats, such as strong winds or rising waters; building floodwalls around properties; or using building materials that are less susceptible to the airborne firebrands generated by wildland fires. Nonstructural approaches to mitigation involve behavioral means of reducing or eliminating risks such as electing to not build in areas prone to flooding or mudslides, or that are partially sheltered from strong winds by geographic features like hills. Perhaps the simplest nonstructural mitigation approach is to transfer the risk through the purchase of insurance. However, despite the relative ease and affordability of insurance for homeowners and renters alike, and government subsidies for high-risk events like flooding, many individuals do not have insurance unless they are required to do so by their mortgage company, especially in times of economic stress. Personal mitigation efforts can be costly, but, as with mitigation at the community level, monies spent before a disaster can lead to greatly reduced losses in the aftermath of an event, and should facilitate a more effective and efficient recovery.

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