Natural disasters are a significant cause of fatalities and economic loss in the United States, with recovery as the most expensive and time-consuming phase of disaster management. To improve disaster response, communities need access to new technologies that streamline and optimize disaster recovery operations and assistance programs. At the same time, state and local governments need to reduce the time necessary to restore critical functions, enable community lifelines, and most importantly, help survivors get back to their daily lives.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) Community and Infrastructure Resilience Program initiated the Disaster Response Project to develop new processes, products, and standards that will improve operations and outcomes for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its state, local, tribal, and territorial partners. These new processes, products, and standards will promote national preparedness objectives and protective measures, help communities prepare for catastrophic disasters, and reduce the complexity of FEMA’s grant programs. In addition, this project strives to improve the ability to track and monitor post-disaster rebuild efforts and restoration functions through improved damage assessment and faster decision making to help expedite recovery operations, making them safer and more efficient.
The Disaster Recovery project seeks to improve management and mitigation of the negative effects of natural disasters. Efforts will include accelerating the time it takes to receive recovery aid and streamlining individual and household assistance programs to affected communities by expediting delivery of assistance directly to disaster survivors in critical need. In addition, tracking and monitoring rebuild and restoration functions through improved damage assessments and faster decision making will help to speed and simplify recovery efforts.
Disaster Recovery Current Activities
- Fire Science and Decision Support Fact Sheet
- Hydrogen Fuel Cell-Powered Emergency Relief Truck Fact Sheet and Video
- Mass Fatality Tracking System (MFTS) Fact Sheet
- Urban Search and Rescue Innovation Fact Sheet
Disaster Recovery Completed Activities
- Central United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC) Partnership Fact Sheet
- Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response (FINDER) Fact Sheet and Video
- First Aid for Severe Trauma
- Incident Management Information Sharing (IMIS) Capability Maturity Model (CMM) Fact Sheet
- NATO Next Generation Incident Command System Pilot Project Fact Sheet
- Shaken Fury 2019 Fact Sheet