Emergency management issues in the California floods of 1997 : lessons learned or lessons lost?.

Bibliography: p. 54

The New Year's flood of 1997 in California caused nearly $2 billion in property damage and forced over 100,000 people from their homes, making it the most destructive flood in the state's history. Following the presidential disaster declaration in January, a field research team from the California Specialized Training Institute (CSTI), the training branch of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, conducted a special study to identify the major emergency management issues in the floods and to suggest improvements in training for future flood disasters. This document is the final report from this effort; it describes the causes and impacts of the floods; discusses issues in hazard analysis, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery that arose as a result of the floods; and identifies lessons for local and state officials. The report also includes a summary of the ranking of relative risk of 10 types of flood hazards by public officials who attended a newly developed training course on flood preparendness and response at CSTI in October