IAEM
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is seeking comments from state, local, tribal, and territorial emergency management practitioners on the draft FEMA Damage Assessment Operating Manual. The manual establishes national damage assessment standards developed from historic lessons learned and best-practices already in use by state, local, tribal and federal emergency management agencies. The manual is built using a framework that encourages local information collection, state or tribal verification, and federal validation. Previous versions of such manuals have focused exclusively on the federal role. This document better highlights and provides guidance to state, local, and tribal governments on their role in the assessment. The draft manual is posted here. Comments should be added to the comment matrix, and submitted by Nov. 14, 2015, by email or by mail to Ryan Buras, Senior Program Advisor, Public Assistance, Recovery Directorate, FEMA, 500 C Street, SW, Mail Stop 3163, Washington, DC 20472.