The impacts of local emergency management agency resource constraints on planning for hazard mitigation and debris management

This research aims to measure hazard mitigation and debris management planning resource constraints for local emergency management agencies throughout the United States. A survey tool was developed that contained sections pertaining to plan development, plan implementation, and collaborative partnerships with other planning stakeholders. The survey was distributed to local emergency management agencies in the 50 states, five territories, and the District of Columbia. After cleaning the data, the sample consisted of 309 local emergency managers that represented all 10 regions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Relevant statistical tests were run to analyze the data. While the results do not provide sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis that resource constraints may inhibit the development of local hazard mitigation plans, there is strong evidence that resource constraints, particularly related to staffing and competing priorities, are significant barriers to the development of local debris management plans. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that jurisdictions with higher staffing capacities are significantly more likely to implement their hazard mitigation and debris management plans effectively. Finally, the results indicate that there were no statistically significant differences in reported collaboration rates between the two plan types across eight planning stakeholder categories. Moreover, partnerships with academic institutions were the least common for hazard mitigation and debris management plans. It is recommended that more partnerships be developed between local emergency management agencies and academic institutions, particularly with planning degree programs, to address these local planning resource constraints. • Measuring hazard mitigation and debris management planning resource constraints. • Surveys were distributed to local emergency management agencies. • Resource constraints are barriers to the development of debris management plans. • Jurisdictions with more staffing are more likely to implement their plans.