We appreciate and thank FEMA for the opportunity provided us to participate in this process. We are 9 Project Impact Coordinators representative of 250 grassroots-focused communities across the country.
Partnerships are a key to local successes.
We have found in our experiences, this is a collaborative effort. As local communities, we strongly support a flexible and inclusive approach in defining this Pre-Disaster Mitigation process. Local governments are helped immensely by mitigation because they will use less of their emergency response resources in the post-disaster recovery. I personally experienced the positive impacts of such efforts in Seattle almost 4 weeks ago. Because of our proactive mitigation measures implemented, damage was reduced, injuries minimized, and lives saved.