ABSTRACT
Emergency management is usually defined as having four phases: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. The new challenge for local government emergency managers is to balance the Department of Homeland Security grant programs’ emphasis on terrorism prevention with the demand for maintaining capability for natural hazard mitigation and response. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines mitigation as follows: “Mitigation refers to activities that are designed to: Reduce or eliminate Long-Term Risk to persons or property, or lessen the actual or potential effects or consequences of an incident”. The success of the postdisaster hazard mitigation programs connected to actual disasters led to the development of a predisaster hazard mitigation grant program within FEMA. All-hazards emergency management posits that preparing for any disaster that has significant community consequences provides a platform for response to any other major disaster. Terrorism prevention programs have focused on community terrorism awareness training and neighborhood-watch-style surveillance.
