Emergency Management

Hazard Mitigation Plan

The City of Des Moines is updating its Hazard Mitigation Plan, a plan to reduce harm from potential hazards such as landslides and earthquakes. The public is invited to provide feedback about hazards you see in Des Moines and ways the City or other government agencies can help protect the community from risk. Community input will be included in the City's hazard mitigation plan that will be submitted to King County.

Click this link to take our online survey
Hazard Mitigation-Public Awareness Survey or you can have one e-mailed to you, please contact Shannon Kirchberg at skirchberg@desmoineswa.gov.

What is hazard mitigation?

Hazard mitigation is another word for disaster risk reduction. It is focused on actions with long-term benefits and can include projects that reduce risk or development codes that prevent it. Hazard mitigation plans are developed periodically by states, counties, and cities to assess risks and identify actions to address those risks.

According to research from the National Institute of Building Sciences, hazard mitigation saves, on average, $6 for every $1 spent. Accordingly, communities throughout King County are investing in projects to increase disaster resilience. Hazard mitigation projects take several forms, including:

Strengthen an asset. Seismic retrofits of earthquake-prone buildings or infrastructure are examples of this.
Move an asset. Buyouts of flood-prone property to save taxpayers on future insurance payouts are examples of this.
Prevent or regulate the development of new assets in hazard-prone areas. An example of this is your local building code or development guidance that regulates construction on steep slopes.

Each of these ‘styles’ of hazard mitigation can be applied to any hazard we face. See below for some of our most serious hazard threats and strategies we may use to reduce risks to our communities. View a complete list of all the hazards assessed through this plan update.