The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Individual and Community Preparedness Division (ICPD) released the findings from its 2015 National Household Survey of 5,000 Americans in June. The survey is designed to measure household and individual preparedness and awareness.
“These are positive results and really help validate the work that FEMA and our partners across the country have been doing,” said ICPD Director Helen Lowman, upon release of the survey. “Going forward, we will be able to use this data to target our most vulnerable populations as we continue to build a culture of preparedness.”
When it comes to awareness of preparedness information, 66 percent of Americans living in areas with a history of hurricanes reported that they had read, seen, or heard information on how to better prepare for a hurricane within the past six months, the survey said. Individuals living in areas with a history of tornadoes were the next most aware of the pertinent preparedness information for their relevant hazard with 53 percent of respondents in those areas saying they had read, seen, or heard information on how to prepare for a tornado in the last six months.
The survey included a series of oversamples in U.S. counties where specific hazards, including: earthquakes, extreme heat, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and winter storms, present a risk to those populations.
ICPD will be going back into the field later this summer to administer the 2016 National Household Survey.
For more information and to review a summary of the 2015 findings, click here.