Disaster Resources

This open access book synthesizes current information on wildland fire smoke in the United States, providing a scientific foundation for addressing the production of smoke from wildland fires. Chapters include content like fire behavior, emissions, fire chemistry, health, economics, and resource management perspectives.

Tribal governments and their members are an essential part of our nation’s emergency management team. Effective relationships with tribes are necessary to fulfill FEMA’s mission of working together to improve our nation’s disaster preparedness and response. FEMA is committed to supporting Indian Country in its efforts to build more resilient and better prepared communities.
Along with the need to ensure the safety of tribal communities and tribal lands in the face of disasters, FEMA shares the U.S. government’s unique nation to nation relationship with federally recognized tribes. FEMA acknowledges the sovereignty of federally recognized tribes and is committed to enhancing our working relationship with tribal governments to improve emergency and disaster responsiveness throughout Indian Country.

The National Tribal Strategy provides FEMA and Tribal Nations with the necessary roadmap to pursue and achieve shared priorities to support tribal communities before, during and after disasters. FEMA developed the strategy to address its responsibilities to build, enhance and sustain its relationships with tribal communities.

The EPA has recently shared this 'Flooded Homes Cleanup Guidance' webpage that includes many resources related to clean up a home after flooding, how to protect your health when doing so, and links to financial assistance and hazard mitigation.

This page provides general information on hazard mitigation and the Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) grant programs.

This guide is intended to provide managers, decision makers, and other practitioners with advice on conducting a rapid assessment of the social dimensions of drought. Findings from a rapid assessment can provide key social context that may aid in decision making, such as when preparing a drought plan, allocating local drought resilience funding, or gathering the support of local agencies and organizations for collective action related to drought mitigation.

On January 29, 2013, President Obama signed the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013, which amended the Stafford Act. The Act included a provision to provide federally recognized Indian tribal governments the option to request a Presidential emergency or major disaster declaration independent of a state. Tribal governments may still choose to seek assistance, as they have historically, under a state declaration request. Below are some resources to help tribes understand the disaster declaration process, as well as the various disaster assistance programs they may receive. View Tribes with federal disaster declarations here.

A portal designed to support, educate, and enhance the development of information and tools to address climate risks.

This Tribal Green Building Codes guidance provides examples of tribal green building ordinance and code language as well as code references.

The Small Community Emergency Response Plan (SCERP) is a quick reference guide for use before, during, and after an emergency or disaster. The SCERP contains checklists for critical actions at the local level, customized for, and by, your community. The SCERP contains important resource information including local, regional, state, and federal contact information. While this particular program is specific to Alaska, the SCERP could serve as a model for other communities to help prepare themselves in case of emergency. To access the SCERP toolkit guide, click here. To access trainings mentioned in the SCERP, click here.

The Tribal Curriculum is a series of courses designed with Tribal people, for Tribal Governments, in order to meet the unique emergency management needs of these Sovereign Nations with regard to tribal culture, tradition, sovereignty and governance.

NWTEMC is a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization that was initially formed in 2004 as a consortium of Tribes in the Northwest region of Washington State to help Tribes participate in Homeland Security and Emergency Management preparedness efforts. Currently the NWTEMC is composed of and serves Tribes in Washington, Oregon Idaho and Alaska for the purposes of information sharing and solidarity in dealing with homeland security/emergency management/public health issues as they pertain to Native Nations. NWTEMC's Charter and other Incorporation-related documents can be found on our About page. Please look around our website. We are constantly updating and enhancing it, so if you would like to see something added please let us know. If you have training events, meetings or other events, we will be glad to add them to our Calendar. If you would be interested in joining NWTEMC please send an e-mail to: info@nwtemc.org.

Here you will you find information about specific disasters and emergencies, how to prepare, recover, and help build long-term resilience, as well as information about USDA assistance during disaster events.

ELAP provides financial assistance to eligible producers of livestock, honeybees and farm-raised fish for losses due to disease, certain adverse weather events or loss conditions, including blizzards and wildfires, as determined by the Secretary. ELAP assistance is provided for losses not covered by other disaster assistance programs authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, such as losses not covered by the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) and the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP).

This self-paced tutorial demonstrates how to use NOAA’s online Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper to create easy-to-understand maps that depict community vulnerability. Select step-by-step instructions for creating, storing, and sharing local flood exposure maps. View the entire video (about an hour) or use the interactive table of contents to select sections of interest.

SWMM-CAT allows users to evaluate climate change impacts on stormwater runoff volume and quality, and to explore how the application of various low-impact development (LID) options can be used to alter these hydrological parameters. SWMM provides a spatial and temporal analysis of runoff quality and quantity by dividing basins into multiple sub-catchment areas and analyzing runoff at different time steps. It covers a variety of different drivers that can cause runoff in urban areas, including rainfall, snowmelt, and groundwater percolation, among others, and also allows for mapping and modeling of different sub-catchment drainage system components, including pipes, channels, diversion structures, storage and treatment facilities, and natural channels.

This page introduces hazard mitigation planning, describes the benefits of risk assessment and planning, and provides an overview of FEMA’s mitigation plan requirement, a condition for receiving certain types of non-emergency disaster assistance.

This page provides resources for state, tribal, and local officials and other parties engaged in developing and implementing hazard mitigation plans.

Deadline passed. Most recent deadline: October 7, 2022. The Natural Hazards Center, with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Science Foundation, is calling for proposals focused on studying public health preparedness, response, and resilience to disasters in inhabited U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, tribal areas, and rural communities across the United States. Proposals can focus on one location or offer comparisons across regions. Learn more including the steps to apply here.

Climate Central’s Surging Seas: Risk Zone map shows areas vulnerable to near-term flooding from different combinations of sea level rise, storm surge, tides, and tsunamis, or to permanent submersion by long-term sea level rise. Within the U.S., it incorporates the latest, high-resolution, high-accuracy lidar elevation data supplied by NOAA, displays points of interest, and contains layers displaying social vulnerability, population density, and property value. Outside the U.S., it utilizes satellite-based elevation data from NASA. It provides the ability to search by location name or postal code.

Everyone knows the Red Cross helps people during emergencies. But you may not know that it’s also part of our mission to help you help yourself! Becoming “Red Cross Ready” for an emergency means following our simple steps in advance to ensure you can weather a crisis safely and comfortably. Being prepared may not prevent a disaster, but it will give you confidence to meet the challenge.

Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation (CMRA) integrates information from across the federal government to help people consider their local exposure to climate-related hazards. People working in community organizations or for local, Tribal, state, or Federal governments can use the site to help them develop equitable climate resilience plans to protect people, property, and infrastructure. The site also points users to Federal grant funds for climate resilience projects, including those available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

This 6 hour course provides provide tribal officials, planners, emergency managers, and other partners with the information necessary to prepare and implement a Tribal hazard mitigation plan. The emphasis is on getting the right people to the table and working through the full planning process. There are no prerequisites required.

Heat-related deaths and illness are preventable, yet annually many people succumb to extreme heat. An important goal of this web site is to provide easily accessible resources for members of the public, local health departments and other organizations, assisting ongoing outreach efforts to those most vulnerable to extreme heat events.

FEMA maintains a website to host information specific to tribes to assist them with emergency preparedness. The website also includes announcements about FEMA funding available to tribes to improve emergency preparedness in tribal communities and a link to FEMA's Ready in Indian Country Program.

Be it a raging wildfire in California, a hurricane in New York or mass flooding in Texas, natural disasters are a fact of life. Between 2000 and 2012, worldwide natural disasters affected nearly three billion people and cost $1.7 trillion in damages. Figuring out what to do in the immediate aftermath of a disaster is a challenge for anyone, but students living away from home from the first time may feel particularly vulnerable. Click the link for more information.

This document is intended to help communities gauge how prepared they are for a disaster.

Mitigation Best Practices are stories, articles or case studies about individuals, businesses or communities that undertook successful efforts to reduce or eliminate disaster risks. They demonstrate that disaster preparedness decreases repetitive losses, financial hardship and loss of life.

FEMA’s Risk MAP tool contains high quality flood maps and tools and outreach support to assist a variety of stakeholders, including state and local officials, in mitigating flood risk.

Deadline Passed. Most Recent Deadline: 3/11/2020. EDA, in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet), is seeking applications from eligible parties to create a strategic nationwide network of organizations working to address disaster response and resiliency (R2) challenges with innovative technologies. The Accelerate R2 Network Challenge seeks to create a nationwide network or networks that will enable and support innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors to bring transformative technologies into the response and resiliency markets.