HLTH 6300 Week 7 Disaster Damage Assessment Example

Damage Assessment for the April Mill River Flood: Homes by Degree of Damage, Public Facilities by Category and the Programs Each Loss Can Reach

Student Name

Walden University

HLTH 6300: Disaster Response and Recovery

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Damage Assessment for the April Mill River Flood: Homes by Degree of Damage, Public Facilities by Category and the Programs Each Loss Can Reach

Purpose and Sources

This assessment turns observations from the joint preliminary damage assessment into the categories federal programs use. Homes are sorted by degree of damage as defined in FEMA's preliminary damage assessment guidance, public facilities by the categories of work in the public assistance program and losses by the program each can reach. All counts and costs are teaching values. Assessments were conducted by county, state and federal teams from Day 5 through Day 8.

Homes by Degree of Damage

Preliminary damage assessment guidance sorts residences into four levels: destroyed, major damage, minor damage and affected, defined chiefly by the depth of water in living space and the condition of structural elements (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2021). Applying those definitions to the 1,240 residences inspected or estimated gives the counts in Table 1.

Table 1

Residences by Degree of Damage and Tenure (Composite County)

About 31% of damaged residences carried flood insurance. Renter-occupied units make up about 32% of the total; renters' contents losses are counted separately from building losses.

Public Facilities by Category of Work

The public assistance program groups eligible work into emergency work, debris removal and emergency protective measures, and permanent work on roads and bridges, water control facilities, buildings and equipment, utilities and parks and other facilities (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2020). Table 2 sorts the county's estimated public costs into those categories.

Table 2

Estimated Public Assistance Costs by Category (Composite County)

Infrastructure by Ownership and Function

Ownership determines which program can reach a loss. County-owned roads, buildings and parks fall under the county's public assistance application. The wastewater plant belongs to a separate utility authority, which applies as its own eligible public entity. The state route is owned by the state transportation department and will be handled under its own procedures. The nursing home is privately owned by a nonprofit; private nonprofits providing certain critical or essential services can be eligible for public assistance, subject to FEMA's review of the facility and its services (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2020). The privately owned food processing plant on the river road, the county's largest employer, is not eligible for public assistance, whatever its importance to the local economy.

Losses by the Program They Can Reach

Insured homes. For the 385 damaged residences with flood insurance, building and contents losses will be paid first by insurance. Federal law prohibits disaster assistance that duplicates benefits available from insurance or other sources (42 U.S.C. § 5155), so these households may receive individual assistance only for needs insurance does not cover.

Uninsured homeowners. The roughly 600 uninsured owners with damage can apply for individual assistance for repair, which is capped and intended to make a home safe and habitable rather than restore it fully, and for low-interest disaster loans from the Small Business Administration.

Renters. The 394 renter households can receive assistance for rental housing and contents but not for building repair, which is the landlord's responsibility.

Businesses. Businesses, including the food processing plant, are not eligible for individual or public assistance and must rely on insurance and disaster loans.

Losses no program reaches. Uninsured contents losses above program limits, lost wages for workers whose employer closed and the gap between repair assistance and the actual cost of rebuilding fall outside every program and will appear in the unmet needs work later in the term.

How the Categories Were Applied

Several cases required judgment. Homes with water in the basement only, where the basement held no living space, were counted as affected rather than minor damage, following the guidance's focus on living space. Manufactured homes with water above the floor were counted as destroyed in most cases, because their construction rarely allows economical repair after flooding at that depth. Apartments in a two-story building on the river road were sorted by unit: ground-floor units with water in living space were counted as major damage, while second-floor units were counted as affected because residents could not reach them while the stairwell was flooded. Each of these calls follows the published definitions rather than the inspectors' general impressions, and each is noted in the assessment file so reviewers can check it.

On the public side, overtime for rescue and sheltering was placed in Category B, while the cost of hauling flood debris from public roads went to Category A. Repairs to the wastewater plant's electrical equipment were placed in Category F, but the cost of the bypass pumping requested from another state was treated as an emergency protective measure in Category B, because it protected public health before permanent repairs began.

What the Assessment Supports

These figures support the governor's request for a major disaster declaration and later program decisions. The residential counts, especially the 328 destroyed or majorly damaged homes and the low insurance rate, bear on whether individual assistance is justified. The public costs by category bear on public assistance. Equally important, the program-by-program sorting shows where help will not reach, which is where the recovery framework and unmet needs work must begin. The assessment should be updated as inspections continue, since early counts often shift as inspectors reach homes that were inaccessible in the first days.

References

Duplication of benefits, 42 U.S.C. § 5155 (2023).

Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2020). Public assistance program and policy guide (Version 4).

Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2021). Preliminary damage assessment guide.