FEMA’s National Preparedness Report Underscores Threat Of Climate Change
The LNU Lightning Complex Fires burn through a neighborhood, forcing residents to evacuate. / Credit: Trevor Bexon, Shutterstock
By Tammy Leytham
The 2022 FEMA National Preparedness Report, released as 2022 rolled to an end, outlines risks and highlights the capabilities emergency managers will need going forward.
In no surprise, the report indicates climate change continues to affect communities and worsen existing vulnerabilities. The report found that in 2021, 92 percent of communities identified at least one natural hazard associated with climate change as being stressful to emergency management capabilities.
The 2022 report also indicates that extreme heat is now one of the deadliest types of weather incidents in the U.S., resulting in more fatalities than hurricanes, tornadoes, or flooding, individually.
“In fact, heat fatalities have outpaced hurricane fatalities by a significant margin in recent decades. The 30-year average indicates heat was responsible for just over three times the number of fatalities caused by hurricanes,” according to the report. “The 10-year and 2021 averages for heat-related fatalities are eight times more than hurricanes.”
The annual NPR is an effort to get ahead of the curve when it comes to natural disasters so that emergency management can be proactive rather than reactionary. Emergency managers and community partners can look to the report to make decisions regarding program priorities, resource allocations, and community actions.
The report details data from 2021, which included 20 weather-related disasters with losses that exceeded $1 billion each. As a comparison, from 1980 to 2021 the number of billion-dollar disasters averaged 7.4 each year.
Other findings:
The nation may not have sufficient body recovery/storage and medical care in a catastrophic disaster. When comparing total threat and hazard identification and risk assessment and stakeholder preparedness review data from 2021 against the national capability targets, the nation overall has the lowest capability in the body recovery/storage and medical care target areas.
Factors such as poverty, lack of access to transportation, and over-capacity housing occupancy continue to weaken the ability of individuals and communities to prevent injury, death, and financial loss in a disaster.
FEMA has adopted measures to address these concerns, including new Public Service Announcements developed specifically to reach Black communities to air during National Preparedness Month, observed in September.
FEMA also released its first-ever National Tribal Strategy in 2022 to better address federally recognized tribal nations when responding to and preparing for disasters. A key part of the strategy includes culturally competent services to Tribal Nations and translating FEMA products into Native American languages.
Another move saw FEMA making the largest update ever to its mobile app, largely driven by critical customer feedback. The updated app – available in English and Spanish – gives users increased personalization options and helps them take charge before, during, and after disasters.