CHMS Community Resilience & Capacity Building 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the primary goal of community resilience in hazard mitigation?
- To eliminate all hazard risks within a jurisdiction
- To enable communities to absorb, adapt to, and recover from disasters with minimal disruption (Correct answer)
- To transfer disaster risk to federal agencies
- To increase the number of emergency response personnel
Correct answer: To enable communities to absorb, adapt to, and recover from disasters with minimal disruption
Community resilience focuses on a community's ability to absorb shocks, adapt, and recover quickly from adverse events while maintaining essential functions.
Question 2: FEMA's 'whole community' approach to hazard mitigation emphasizes:
- Exclusive reliance on government agencies for disaster response
- Engaging all segments of society, including individuals, businesses, and NGOs, in mitigation efforts (Correct answer)
- Limiting planning to professional emergency managers only
- Focusing resources solely on critical infrastructure protection
Correct answer: Engaging all segments of society, including individuals, businesses, and NGOs, in mitigation efforts
The whole community approach recognizes that effective mitigation requires engaging all community members—individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and government—as active partners.
Question 3: Which FEMA program awards premium discounts to flood insurance policyholders in communities that implement floodplain management beyond minimum NFIP standards?
- Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP)
- Community Rating System (CRS) (Correct answer)
- Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC)
- Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) program
Correct answer: Community Rating System (CRS)
The Community Rating System (CRS) rewards communities that exceed NFIP minimum requirements with discounts on flood insurance premiums for policyholders.
Question 4: Social capital in disaster resilience primarily refers to:
- The monetary funds set aside for disaster recovery
- Physical infrastructure investments in high-risk areas
- Networks of relationships, trust, and norms that enable communities to act collectively (Correct answer)
- The number of trained emergency responders per capita
Correct answer: Networks of relationships, trust, and norms that enable communities to act collectively
Social capital encompasses the bonds, bridges, and linkages between people and organizations that enable coordinated community action before, during, and after disasters.
Question 5: A Local Mitigation Strategy (LMS) is best described as:
- A federal mandate requiring all cities to adopt uniform hazard codes
- A community-level plan identifying risks and mitigation actions to reduce disaster vulnerability (Correct answer)
- An emergency operations plan for disaster response and recovery
- A financial audit of community disaster spending
Correct answer: A community-level plan identifying risks and mitigation actions to reduce disaster vulnerability
An LMS is a locally developed, multi-jurisdictional plan that identifies hazard risks and prioritizes mitigation actions to reduce vulnerability and build community resilience.
Question 6: Which of the following best supports long-term community resilience capacity building?
- Purchasing temporary shelters after each disaster event
- Training and empowering community members as local hazard mitigation ambassadors (Correct answer)
- Delegating all preparedness activities to state agencies
- Focusing mitigation resources exclusively on the most recent hazard type
Correct answer: Training and empowering community members as local hazard mitigation ambassadors
Building local human capital through training and empowerment creates sustained capacity that persists across multiple hazard events and administrations.
Question 7: Vulnerable populations in community resilience planning most commonly include:
- Only individuals with documented physical disabilities
- Elected officials and emergency managers
- Individuals with access and functional needs, low-income households, elderly, and non-English speakers (Correct answer)
- Businesses with revenues under $1 million annually
Correct answer: Individuals with access and functional needs, low-income households, elderly, and non-English speakers
Resilience planning must address populations with access and functional needs, socioeconomic disadvantages, language barriers, and age-related vulnerabilities who face disproportionate disaster impacts.
CHMS Community Resilience & Capacity Building 1
What is the primary goal of community resilience in hazard mitigation?