Reducing the impact of natural disasters : Governors' advisors talk about mitigation.

Bibliography: p. 23

Cover title

This is a final report of the Council of Governors' Policy Advisors (CGPA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose members were the top four advisors to each of the nations governors, and whose duties were recently absorbed by the National Governors Association. Following a series of conversations between CGPA staff and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, CGPA surveyed states to determine the level of knowledge that exists in governors' offices regarding disaster mitigation. The results of that survey are included in this paper, as well as a history of federal hazard mitigation activity and a description of the basic theories behind natural hazard mitigation. A section titled "Issue analysis" examines hazard mitigation from the standpoint of a general policy maker in a governors' office rather than that of an expert on the subject. Among the findings, CGPA members felt there was a lack of political and public support for mitigation, although respondents thought their governors would be open to a stronger leadership role if it was possible to clearly measure the benefits of increased mitigation and if these benefits were significantly greater than the costs of conducting the work