Mitigation is the effort to lessen the effect of impacts before or in the process of their occurrence. The nation and state governments greatly engage in various machinery to battle the various hazards. Hazards especially floods cause large-scale destruction to property that affects people negatively especially if they do not have financial resources to start over again. Therefore, in using various measures to determine the occurrence of the floods and placing early warning systems has helped much to alleviate the impact of floods that will be dealt with in the paper. Mitigation plans should be made to ensure that those who are executing them have an understanding to increase effectiveness of the whole exercise. Floods in the Ohio basin, which is a watershed, have caused untold damage and methods to lessen their impacts are highly welcome. Its overflow most of the time and this had led to the loss of lives from the floodwaters. Saturation of the soil in Ohio during spring and winter contributes greatly from flooding this is sometimes caused by the fact that the soil is frozen. The floods are usually caused by heavy and have from time immemorial led to many losses, as such the rich should be prioritized to reduce damages that have occurred over time and to prevent future occurrences.
Read also Hyatt Regency Kansa City Hotel Disaster – Case of Risk and Safety Management Procedures Ignorance
Mitigation of risks or hazard is quite important to any locality that has the safety of its people at heart. The various authorities can take actions to mitigate the impacts of the hazards to safeguard the people of the locality. Therefore, in dealing with hazard management, it is imperative that solution is found to the hazards in place. Some of the hazards are manageable while others cannot be managed, but mitigation measures can be applied to reduce human causalities. Tornadoes and some floods are hard to control and usually and people are usually evacuated as a result. Risk assessment helps a lot in finding out on what solutions can be used to manage hazards (Bouma, 2005). The project will help in providing a viable solution that will help the government especially in directing its resources to be used for mitigating flooding.
Read also Flood Risks Mitigation Using Embankment and Floodwalls – River Mersey
Steps of Mitigating Ohio Flooding
Floods are mostly unavoidable and are caused by weather and other factors that cannot be controlled to the extent of preventing the flood from occurring. Various measures can be taken that will lessen the impact of the floods on the people. The people in the affected regions should consider the following in preparing and keeping safe from the floods in Ohio. Flood evacuation plans should be formed to help remove as many people and as much property as possible to reduce greatly the extent of damages that the floods can cause. High-risk areas should, therefore, develop a plan to evacuate and inform the people in those areas on how to prepare for such an evacuation to ensure their safety and that of their families. Since Ohio is, a high-risk flooding area it is important that people be taught to respond quickly to evacuation plans by the authorities. In planning the evacuation plan, the issue of transport should be considered, and the areas of safety determined to help one access them easily. Eth evacuation planning should include various important items like food items, portable chargers, and first aid kits.
Making the house waterproof. People in the flood prone areas should ensure that there that downspouts, gutters, and storm drains are regularly cleaned to prevent blockage or clogging. This will help in draining water quite easily from the house and prevent damages that may arise due to floodwater. Another issue is to ensure that you the pattern of surface runoff on your yard to prevent unnecessary flooding. Landscaping and can make the floodwater surface runoff take place easily and prevent any water from a collection in one place and causing damage to property.
Electrical appliances should be placed above the floor up to certain height to prevent damage by floodwater that may flood the house to certain height. Most of the equipment that should be elevated is heating and cooling equipment. The measure will allow one to reduce any cost repair after the floods. Ensure that the property is accounted for by making records of the items that will be valuable in claiming of the items should they drift away with floodwater.
The people in flood prone areas should ensure that they ensure their premises so that in case a flood occurs they can get back on their feet with the assistance from the insurance companies. One can take up a flood insurance plan that involves compensation for physical items since most insurance companies regard floods as catastrophes and cannot wholly compensate for the damage unless specific items are named. Any person on who has lost a house, which was insured and compliant with National Floods Insurance Program (NFIP), can obtain flood insurance.
Furthermore, people living prone areas should ensure that they have a knowledge of the various terms that related to floods. Some of the terms are like the watch and warn. Therefore, the people should always be watchful of the weather especially in the forecasts from meteorological stations or on the local weather forecast daily especially in the winter and spring. The National Weather Services provides more information on flooding by determining the severity and likelihood of floods occurring. It has four levels of determining the flood happenings, and there are Flood advisory-Be aware which warns the public that there may be a flood though its severity is not high for warnings to be issued. Such a flood may eventually cause extensive damage if precautions are not taken soon enough. Flood watch-Be prepared! It is issued if there is enough evidence that a flood can occur though it may not occur at all. Flood warning-Take action! It is the issue when a flood is in the process of occurring or is about to occur. Weather update on the various media can help one to evacuate to a safer place. Flash flood warning – Take action! It is issued when the flash flood is already happening is about to happen. Such a warning usually prompts people to move to higher ground. Flash floods can be experienced anywhere whether there is rain or not and, therefore, the alert should be taken with great caution.
Floods and their Recommended Solutions
Other flood-prone areas have used the various solutions above in dealing with flooding. FEMA greatly helps in ensuring that people in flood-prone areas get as much help as possible. The help is usually to ensure that people know where to seek refuge should a flood or flash flood occur.
Many mitigation activities have taken center stage in flood prone areas with the aim of reducing damage and destruction of properties and ensuring that the people are protected from the floods. Such measures help in reducing property damage and decrease recovery funding in such areas. Mitigation in various areas has succeeded greatly by the cooperation of the public and local officials especially in promoting change to their communities, which have greatly been affected by hazards in the past. Several programs that have helped in the mitigation of floods include Flood Mitigation Assistance Program and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and it is Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. FEMA has assisted various localities in providing funds to help relocate more structures from flood prone areas. Other agencies like the National Resource Conservation Service and the Army Corps of Engineers have built locks, levees and dams among others in preventing the adverse effects of floods. Countries are growing by the day and so is the devastation of floods among the population. The losses continue to worsen as the country grows event though federal flood control has been placed for 75 years. The trend in most occurrences of the floods leads to great losses, which increase, on a decade basis. It is easier to predict the floods, but they cause extensive damage and the costs of covering the damages have doubled over time.
The success the increasing cost of dealing with the floods proves that the various mitigation has been but successful. Even though the country has had flood control for over 75 years, there is more that needs to be done to prevent the extensive damage floods cause to communities. The major successes are that the flood-prone areas have been extensively mapped and various routes made to help people to access higher grounds should the floods occur. Weather forecasts and warning systems have increased greatly. Therefore, people can be alerted more easily on the weather changes to ensure that extensive damage and loss of life is prevented.
Anticipated Cost of Strategy
The costing of the strategy is ensuring that there are on call cars and emergency lines in the affected area in Ohio is 70,000$. The money will be used to buy cars, and emergency rescue kits that will help in dealing with The strategy is to provide daily alters to the people and therefore communication will need to be enhanced through radio calls especially when the weather is stormy. The radios will help reach the community, which will be provided to those who subscribe to the emergency service. The radio calls will only be used for emergencies only.
Community, Political and Legal Impacts of Project
The project aims to mitigate floods, which will help the local authorities greatly since more funds will be used for other things, and not only in floods has that destroyed much of the activities in the Ohio (Cormier et al., 2000). The state has set up various legislation about flood plain how it should be used. Therefore, any project should operate within the law to ensure that there are no collisions with law enforcement agencies. The project will help strengthen the various laws that are geared towards flood mitigation. The states has various regulations that guard flood plains and ensure that no development affects the flood plain negatively in either increasing or decreasing the adverse effects of the floods. The various solutions to flooding on river Ohio like improvement in communication and emergency transportation will be carried out by the various laws in Ohio.
Mitigation has long-term effects that help the communities in flood-prone areas. Politics does not usually focus on long term but tends to deal with the situation in using short-term solutions. The mitigation of floods can relocating the people in the flood zones that are highly affected to safer regions. Politically funds usually lack to support the development of various solutions regarding flooding in Ohio State.
Impact of Non-Execution of Project
In case that the project does not take place various avoidable incidents associated with the floods like faster deployment of transport to affected areas will not take place. It will lead to inefficiency in the rescue operations. Legally it will mean that the laws in place are not effective in dealing with flooding in Ohio. Since the project aims to mitigate and lessen the effects the floods it is, important that if it does not take place there would be economic impacts (Godschalk, 2003). Safeguarding of the people’s lives and property is the mandate of the state and it should ensure that all measures are taken to keep the people safe. The community will have to bear with the various losses that usually occur when the floods take place. Politics seeks to help come up with solutions and most of the solutions usually do not have to fund.
Emergency Management
Preparedness entails actions that maintain, refine, exercise and refine systems that are to be used recovery and responding to the emergency. The important tasks in preparedness of hazards are organizing assets and determining interactions and actions that will assist in recovery and response. The first step should ensure that those who will be involved in responding to the floods undergo training. Preparedness deals with how an organization responds to an emergency especially in this case a flood plain. The action to be taken in preparedness of a flood disaster is to build levees, dams, and locks. The locks help in ensuring that the river water remains level and that it does not overflow its banks. Preparedness further involves making frequent weather forecasts that help in reducing floods. Other mitigation measures involve diverting the river water into reservoirs that are elevated to prevent not only flooding but to store the excess water.
Read also Improving Emergency Management from Disasters – Hurricanes Sandy And Katrina And 9/11
Mitigation
Mitigation involves all activities that eliminate or alleviate the chances of a hazard occurring or in the case that the hazard occurs reduce the impact of the effects associated with it. Mitigation activities usually take place before the hazard occurrence or when it is already taking place. After the hazard extent is examined further reactions is taken which includes response action. Mitigation, therefore, is undertaken to ensure that the action taken will alleviate and the impacts greatly. Mitigation will therefore deliberately focus on engaging in actions that will improve the control of floods.
Read also Professionalism, Accountability, Best Practices, and Ethics in Emergency Management
Response and Recovery
The activities that are directed towards dealing with hazard are referred to as response activities. The response activities are usually taken in anticipated the hazard, in this case, the floods, and during the occurrence of the floods. Furthermore, actions that are taken after the floods have taken place are considered as response actions. The emergency operations usually plan to entail all activities and the procedures to carry them out (Pei-Jun, 2005). In the case of floods, the medical emergency should be a priority to those who are injured by the floods. Rescue efforts during the storm are carried out to find if there are any persons especially when the flood is not that severe. Recovery efforts usually involve finding out lost items and clearing the area of the various food items. In both recovery and response, volunteers should be called to help in response and recovery in conjunction with the existing workers. Many people may be injured by the floods and may need medical assistance.
Read also The Emergency Management Plan for the Hurricane Katrina
Challenges that Responders Encounter
The challenges that face the community in responding to the hazard are myriad and involve dealing with infrastructure that has deteriorated due to the floods and the various household items that are scattered throughout the areas and the roads. Some electric posts may pose danger to the responders as they may get electric shocks. Communication may not be efficient because most telephone lines or communication equipment may have been swept away. Other challenges are waterlogged areas that make it hard for people to move about in the affected areas. Other challenges are people who are trapped in building that have been demolished by the floods.
Read also Emergency Management and Homeland Security – Pima County
Solutions to Challenges
Volunteers, contract services, and government support are some of the things that should be deliberated. The various state agencies like homeland securities should be involved in providing security and other state agencies like the municipal council called upon to ensure that there are haulers to help in clearing the roads of trees, mounds of dirt among other debris. Mutual aid among hospitals should be used to help the people injured due to the floods and assist people carrying out the medical aid.
Short and Long-Term Goals The short-term goals should deal with educating the people on floods and providing emergency kits that they will need should floods occur (Bouma et al., 2005). Also, there should increase emergency response units in the state departments that will ensure that people who are in flood prone areas are evacuated immediately especially those who have not heeded the warnings. The long-term goals would be to build dams, dikes and diversion channels that may help prevent the accumulation of water in the river. Other long-term goals are setting up open channel structures or underground storm water drains that help in channel more water to underground tanks.
Get Your Custom Paper From Professional Writers. 100% Plagiarism Free, No AI Generated Content and Good Grade Guarantee. We Have Experts In All Subjects.
Place Your Order Now