Disasters Overview

Disaster can strike at any time and in any place, building slowly, or occurring suddenly without warning.  Whatever the scenario, as the federal government's emergency management and preparedness agency, FEMA serves in a coordination and integration role, collaborating with the agency's local, state, federal, tribal, private sector and non-profit partners before, during and after disasters to ensure that all survivors are included and their needs are met.

FEMA Mission Statement:

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from and mitigate all hazards.

Continuously Strengthening Operations

To serve disaster victims and communities more quickly and effectively, FEMA builds on experience, applies lessons learned and best practices from field operations, gathers feedback from many sources, and constantly strives to improve on its operational core capabilities:

• Serve Disaster Victims
• Integrated preparedness
• Incident Management
• Disaster Logistics
• Hazard Mitigation
• Emergency Communications
• Public Disaster Communications
• Continuity Programs