U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) criticized President Bush's fiscal year 2002 budget proposal to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) initiative, Project Impact: Building Disaster-resistant Communities. The nationwide program works with cities and counties to help reduce the destructive effects of natural disasters. FEMA enters into partnerships with communities to fashion hazard mitigation responses to local concerns and needs. Project Impact helps communities carry out a detailed risk assessment and create disaster resistant strategies. Communities turn these strategies into policy by revising local building and land use codes and passing bond issues to construct prevention measures that will impact the entire community.
Senator Akaka, Ranking Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Proliferation, International Security and Federal Services, has requested that the Government Accounting Office (GAO) review the federal government's disaster mitigation programs, including Project Impact, to determine their effectiveness in achieving their goals. "FEMA estimates that for every dollar spent on disaster mitigation, two dollars are saved in disaster response and recovery," Akaka noted. "Communities across America have embraced Project Impact to prepare for disasters. The program's positive impact in Seattle underscores the Administration's short-sighted numbers crunching." The Bush Administration projects savings of $25 million from the elimination of the program.
"Everything that I hear about Project Impact points to its successes," said Akaka. "NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Humane Society have all become Project Impact signatories in the past few months. Although the President's budget proposal states that Project Impact has not been effective, it is unclear how that conclusion was reached. We should not eliminate a program without reviewing its successes or failures. In order to evaluate Project Impact, I am requesting that the GAO review the program and measure its performance. It is only right that there be an audit of this program, which so many communities believe is an important government partnership, before eliminating its funding."
Project Impact operates on three simple principles: preventive action must be decided at local levels, private sector participation is vital, and long-term efforts and investments in prevention measures are essential. Project Impact takes resources from a federal agency and gives it to the communities, empowering them to become stronger and self-reliant.
Project Impact is an important reason why damage to Seattle during Wednesday's magnitude 6.8 earthquake was moderate and the number of injuries low. A Project Impact pilot community, Seattle, Washington, uses Project Impact funds to ensure an earthquake-resistant community by retrofitting school buildings and bridges, identifying zones of vulnerability, training homeowners, and reinforcing hundreds of Seattle-area homes. Seattle formed neighborhood disaster teams and brought in local businesses to help. Only last April, Seattle held its eighth "Disaster Saturday" at a school that had been retrofitted with non-structural seismic retrofits as part of the city's "Project Impact's School Retrofit" program.
Since its inception in 1997, nearly 250 community partners and 2,500 business partners across the country have joined with Project Impact. In Hawaii, all four counties are community partners to Project Impact. The state is vulnerable to risks from hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, torrential rains and flooding, tsunamis, droughts, earthquakes, and wildland fires. In FY1998, Hawaii County received a $500,000 Project Impact grant. Maui County received $300,000 in FY1999, Kauai County $300,000 in FY2000, and the City and County of Honolulu will receive $300,000 in FY2001.
Project Impact partners have revamped their local emergency management plans, elevated flood prone properties, developed mobile demonstration models for hazard resistant construction techniques and upgraded storm water drainage systems. In addition, Project Impact communities are encouraged to exchange ideas with each other. As former FEMA director James Lee Witt stated, ". . . participants know that Project Impact empowers them to save lives, protect property, protect their economies, livelihoods and save their citizens from the heartache of disaster."
