New York City's Hazard Mitigation Plan lists different events (emergencies, disasters, or hazards) that could harm the city and explains what City agencies are doing to reduce their impact.

To get FEMA funding for hazard mitigation after a disaster, the plan must be updated every five years. In March 2009, NYC Emergency Management finished the first Hazard Mitigation Plan to help make the city stronger against hazards. Five years later, they worked with the Department of City Planning and the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency to update the plan in 2014. After that, yearly updates came out in 2015, 2016, and 2017

Click on the following links to view previous plans and updates:

• View the 2009 plan
• View the 2014 plan
• View the annual update for the HMP (2015)
• View the annual update for the HMP (2016)
• View the annual update for the HMP (2017)

In 2019, NYC Emergency Management created the five-year update as a website. This made New York City the first in the region to have an online FEMA-required hazard mitigation plan. The site explains the hazards that could affect the city, the risks to people and infrastructure, and strategies to reduce damage.

The website includes:

• Important features of the city’s environment that make it at risk

• Risk assessments for nine hazards, showing how likely they are, where they might happen, and past events

• Best practices and strategies led by the City to manage each hazard
  

Hazards in the plan include: coastal erosion, coastal storms, disease outbreaks, drought, earthquakes, extreme temperatures, flooding, thunderstorms, tornadoes, windstorms, wildfire, winter storms, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN), cyber threats, and infrastructure failures.

The plan lists both current and possible future actions to limit the effects of a major disaster on the city’s people, economy, buildings, and infrastructure. You can see all the actions and an interactive map under the “Mitigation Strategy” section of the website.

Yes. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, signed in 1988, allows the federal government to help states and cities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters.

In 2000, the Disaster Mitigation Act (DMA 2000) updated the law to stress the need for planning before disasters happen. It requires states, local governments, and Tribal governments to work together on mitigation planning. To get FEMA hazard mitigation funding, a community must have an approved plan.