The term "Hazard Mitigation" describes actions that can help reduce or eliminate long-term risks caused by hazards or disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, wildfires, landslides, tornadoes, earthquakes, dam failures, or terrorism. In Pennsylvania, the most common hazard is flooding.

Each state is required to have a hazard mitigation plan in order to be eligible for certain types of federal mitigation funding. Pennsylvania is updating its State Standard All-Hazard Mitigation Plan and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) has developed a new web site at www.pemahmp.com to inform everyone about this effort.

Other features of this new web site include a survey created by PEMA to gather input from the public and a photo contest. Successful photo submissions will be used and credited in future PEMA hazard mitigation publications.