FEMA 386-6 Book.indb

Integrating Historic Property

and Cultural Resource

Considerations Into Hazard

Mitigation Planning

State and Local Mitigation Planning How-To Guide

FEMA 386-6 / May 2005

COVER PHOTO: View looking north along Broadway

during the 1975 ﬂood in Milton, Pennsylvania. The

ﬂood crest reached 29.8 feet, and began a large scale ur-

ban renewal project to demolish hundreds of ﬂood-prone

buildings in the area.

Source: Milton Standard, September 1975 Commemorate Issue

Integrating Historic Property

and Cultural Resource

Considerations Into

Hazard Mitigation Planning

FEMA 386-6 / May 2005

STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING

how-to guide

Version 1.0 May 2005

Contents

foreword

introduction

PHASE ONE organize resources

PHASE TWO assess risks

PHASE THREE develop a mitigation plan

PHASE FOUR implement the plan and monitor progress

afterword

appendix a – glossary

appendix b – library

appendix c – worksheets

appendix d – answers to review tests

1-1

2-1

3-1

4-1

a-1

b-1

c-1

d-1

STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

the

hazard

mitigation

planning

process

Hazard mitigation planning is the

process of determining how to

reduce or eliminate the loss of life

and property damage resulting

from natural and manmade haz

ards. As shown in this diagram

, the

hazard mitigation planning process

consists of four basic phases.

For illustration purposes, this

diagram portrays a process that

appears to proceed sequentially.

However, the mitigation planning

process is rarely a linear process. It

is not unusual that ideas developed

while assessing risks should need

revision and additional information

while developing the mitigation

plan, or that implementing the

plan may result in new goals or

additional risk assessment.

foreword

Version 1.0 May 2005

foreword

he Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

has developed a series of mitigation planning “how-to”

guides for the purpose of assisting Tribes, States, and local

governments in developing effective hazard mitigation planning

processes. The material presented in these guides is intended to

address the needs of both large and small communities with varying

degrees of technical expertise and ﬁnancial reserves.

The topic area for this guide is “Integrating Historic Property

and Cultural Resource Considerations into Hazard Mitigation

Planning.”

Other guides that have been developed by FEMA as part of the

“how-to” series include:

Getting started with the mitigation planning process,

including important considerations for how you can

organize your efforts to develop an effective mitigation

plan (FEMA 386-1);

Identifying hazards and assessing losses to your

community, State, or Tribe (FEMA 386-2);

Setting mitigation priorities and goals for your

community, State, or Tribe and writing the plan (FEMA

386-3); and

Implementing the mitigation plan, including project

funding and maintaining a dynamic plan that changes

to meet new developments (FEMA 386-4).

These four guides are commonly referred to as the “core four” as

they provide a broad overview of the core elements associated with

hazard mitigation planning. In addition to these “core four,” FEMA

has developed a series of supplementary “how-to” guides that are

to be used in conjunction with the “core four” and address the

following special topic areas:

Evaluating potential mitigation actions through the use

of beneﬁt-cost review (FEMA 386-5);



mit-i-gate\ 1: to cause to

become less harsh or hos-

tile; 2: to make less severe

or painful.

plan-ning\ : the act or pro

cess of making or carrying out plans;

specif: the establishment of goals,

policies and procedures for a social

or economic unit.

STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

foreword

Incorporating special considerations into hazard

mitigation planning for historic properties and cultural

resources, the topic of this how-to guide (FEMA 386-6);

Incorporating mitigation considerations for manmade

hazards into hazard mitigation planning (FEMA 386-7);

Using multi-jurisdictional approaches to mitigation

planning (FEMA 386-8); and

Finding and securing technical and ﬁnancial resources

for mitigation planning (FEMA 386-9).

Why should you take the time

to read these guides?

It is more cost-effective to assess potential effects from a

disaster and to implement preventative measures than

to wait for a disaster to strike and then assess actual

impacts;

State and Federal aid is usually insufﬁcient to cover the

full extent of physical and economic damages resulting

from disasters;

A surprising amount of disaster damage can be

prevented if you understand where and how these

phenomena occur; and

The impacts of both natural and manmade hazards

can be reduced; response and recovery rates can be

increased.

In addition, Tribes, States, and local communities are required

to have FEMA-approved hazard mitigation plans in place to

qualify for various FEMA grant programs, including the Hazard

Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) and the Pre-Disaster Mitigation

Competitive Grant Program (PDM-C).

Who is the audience for

this how-to guide?

This guide is designed for all practitioners involved in creating a

hazard mitigation plan (e.g., planners and emergency managers).

Why should planners and emergency managers consider historic

properties and cultural resources? Because after a disaster, these



Focus on

Preparedness

Because of the increas-

ingly devastating effects

of natural disasters and the growing

threats of manmade damages associ

ated with terrorism, emergency per-

sonnel across the United States have

increased their efforts to better protect

their communities. This increased em

phasis on pre-disaster planning and

preparedness is a direct outgrowth of

the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (P.L.

106-390 [DMA 2000]), which amended

the Robert T. Stafford Relief and Emer-

gency Assistance Act.

DMA 2000 continues the requirement

for a State mitigation plan as a condi

tion of disaster assistance, while new

language requires that Tribes and local

jurisdictions now have a plan to be eli

gible for disaster assistance. Tribes can

choose to follow the State planning re

quirements if they wish to be grantees

for FEMA funding programs or the local

planning requirements if they wish to

apply for disaster funds through the

State as subgrantees. Additionally, the

new language emphasizes the need

for Tribal, State, and local jurisdic-

tions to closely coordinate mitigation

planning and implementation efforts.

Incentives to assist in the development

of plans are also provided.

DMA also emphasizes coordination

among agencies and public partici

pation, important components of the

hazard mitigation planning process.

To this end, collaboration among

Federal, Tribal, State, regional, and

local agencies is critical to reducing

disaster-related damage to historic

properties and cultural resources and

ensuring that communities can not only

survive, but also thrive.

The integration of historic properties

and cultural resources into compre

hensive mitigation planning is critical

to the spirit and intent of DMA 2000.

Planning for historic properties and

cultural resources within existing

programs and policies can enhance a

jurisdiction’s ability to understand and

document its vulnerability to natural

and manmade hazards.

iii

Version 1.0 May 2005

foreword

resources’ special status as designated landmarks may complicate

recovery efforts. However, these resources may also be assets that

can help in creating mitigation plans with multiple community

beneﬁts.

This guide will be of value to citizens who love their communities

and want to protect their historic and cultural assets. The guide

will outline speciﬁc steps for how communities can harness their

knowledge, talent, and energy to create a secure future for historic

resources.

What are the beneﬁts of hazard

mitigation planning?

The goal of the “how-to” guides is not only to teach the mechanics

of mitigation planning but also to demonstrate the real-world

beneﬁts of mitigation planning:

Your community can become more

sustainable and

disaster-resistant

through selecting the most appropriate

mitigation actions, based on the knowledge you gain in

the hazard identiﬁcation and risk assessment process;

You will be able to focus your efforts on the hazard areas most

important to you

by determining and setting priorities for

mitigation planning efforts; and

You can save money by providing a forum for engaging

in partnerships that could provide technical, ﬁnancial,

and/or staff resources in your effort to reduce the

effects, and hence the costs, of natural and manmade

hazards.

These guides provide a range of approaches to preparing a hazard

mitigation plan. While there is no one right planning process,

there are several elements that are common to all successful

planning endeavors, such as engaging citizens, developing goals

and objectives, and monitoring progress. Select the approach that

works best in your Tribe, State, or community.



The Goals of

This Guide

This special-topic guide,

Incor porating Historic

Property and Cultural Resource

Considerations Into Hazard Mitiga

tion Planning, will provide information

and assistance to Tribes, States, and

local governments on how to integrate

historic preservation planning con-

siderations into the hazard mitigation

planning process to protect important

historic properties and cultural re

sources from natural and manmade

hazards. This guide will help your juris

diction accomplish the following:

Identify and pull together resources

that enhance the planning team’s

capability for incorporating historic

property and cultural resource con

siderations into the hazard mitiga-

tion plan;

Determine which historic properties

and cultural resources are likely

to be damaged in a disaster and

prioritize those most important for

protection;

Evaluate potential hazard mitigation

actions for historic properties and

cultural resources through the use

of beneﬁt-cost analysis and other

decision-making tools; and

Develop and implement a hazard

mitigation plan that addresses

historic properties and cultural

resources.

Because each of the four mitigation

planning phases is covered compre

hensively in its own how-to guide,

references to other publications in

the series are often used in lieu of full

explanations of a process or activity.

Furthermore, this guide is intended as

a general guidance tool for the broad

audiences that are likely to comprise

Tribal, State, and local mitigation plan

ning teams, including government

agencies, community interest groups,

and cultural organizations.



introduction

Version 1.0 May 2005

introduction

lthough a new and evolving concept, the importance

of integrating historic property and cultural resource

considerations into mitigation planning has been made

all too apparent in disasters that have occurred in recent years,

such as the Northridge earthquake in California, or the Midwest

ﬂoods. The effects of a disaster can be wide-ranging—from human

casualty to property damage to the disruption of governmental,

social, and economic activity. Often not considered, however, are

the potentially devastating effects of disasters on historic properties

and cultural resources. Historic buildings and structures, artwork,

monuments, family heirlooms, and historic documents are often

irreplaceable, and may be lost forever in a disaster if not considered

in the mitigation planning process. The loss of these resources is

all the more painful and ironic considering how often residents

rely on their presence after a disaster, to reinforce connections with

neighbors and the larger community, and to seek comfort in the

aftermath of a disaster.

Plan to Protect

Sometimes residents don’t recognize how important their

historic properties are until they are gone. When disaster

strikes a community’s historic downtown, the identity and

economic vitality of the community can be wiped out in a

single blow. Pierce City, Missouri, offers a poignant example.

On May 4, 2003, tornadoes tore through Pierce City, a com-

munity of 1,800, destroying approximately 100 homes and

close to 40 percent of the downtown businesses, including

historic buildings that were more than a century old. Quotes

from residents, contained in a newsletter from the Ameri

can Red Cross, provided some insight into the devastation

wrought:

“While most of the town survived, its heart has been

damaged.”

“Our beautiful little town has been destroyed… Antique

stores and boutiques occupied most of the downtown

historic buildings. They have been reduced to piles of

rubble… The National Guard Armory, where many ﬂed

to take shelter, collapsed on them.”

“It was the prettiest little town in Missouri, but now it’s

all gone, all the history, all its character—everything.”

In the wake of a series of tornadoes, many of Pierce

City, Missouri’s commercial historic buildings were

heavily damaged.

Photo courtesy of the American Red Cross

STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

introduction

Historic properties and cultural resources are also valuable

economic assets that increase property values and attract businesses

and tourists. Far from being at odds with economic development,

preservation of these assets is often an important catalyst for

economic development (e.g., historic downtown revitalization

programs leading to growth in heritage tourism).

Historic preservation planning allows for the protection of historic

properties and cultural resources before they are threatened with

demolition or alteration. Hazard mitigation planning allows for the

protection of life and property from damage caused by natural and

manmade hazards. Integrating these two planning processes will

help to ensure the future growth of safe and sustainable historic

communities.

Yesterday’s Architecture, Tomorrow’s Economy

In Florida, the last three decades have witnessed the

development of many historic preservation programs that

have encouraged economic growth. According to Economic

Impacts of Historic Preservation in Florida (available online

from the Florida Department of State, Division of Historical

Resources, Bureau of Historic Preservation (http://www.

ﬂheritage.com/ﬁles/economic_impact.pdf), the economic

impact of historic preservation is $4.2 billion annually, includ-

ing the following in 2000 alone:

More than 123,000 jobs were generated in Florida

from historic preservation activities;

More than $657 million in State and local taxes were

generated from spending on historic preservation

activities with $317 million in income; and

More than $3.7 billion was spent in Florida by tourists

who visited historic sites.

In Georgia, according to Profiting from the Past: the

Economic Impact of Historic Preservation in Georgia, the

rehabilitation of historic properties from 1992 through 1996

created 7,550 jobs and $201 million in earnings wages for

workers and proﬁts for local businesses. “In 1996, tourists

spent over $453 million on historic-related leisure activities,

more money than they spent on evening entertainment,

cultural events, or general sight-seeing activities.” On aver

age, heritage travelers stay almost two nights longer than

other travelers.



The following are just a few examples of how his-

toric preservation provides signiﬁcant economic

beneﬁt:

In Virginia, according to the Mosby Heritage Area Web site,

“Statewide reports indicate that every million dollars spent

rehabilitating historic buildings in Virginia generates 15.6

construction jobs, 14.2 jobs in other sectors of the economy,

and $779,800 in household earnings. That means that ev

ery million dollars spent on restoration in Virginia creates

3.4 more jobs and adds $53,500 more to local household

incomes than the same amount spent on new construction.”

See http://www.mosbyheritagearea.org/Report/renovate.

html.

In Richmond, property assessments in the Shockoe Slip

historic district, an old residential neighborhood changing

over to residential and commercial uses, increased 245%

between 1980 and 1990, while the rate in the city as a whole

was just 8.9% (according to The Importance of Historic

Preservation in Downtown Richmond: Shockoe Ship Area,

a Case Study, 1991).

The Virginia Tourism Corporation reports that visitors to

historic homes stay an average of 3.6 nights and spend

$497 per trip, while Civil War buffs following a car route tend

to stay 4.1 nights and spend $547. The average pleasure

visitor to Virginia stays 2.0 nights and spends an average

of $249 per trip.

vii

Version 1.0 May 2005

introduction

How do you use this and the

other how-to guides?

Information from the “core four” guides (i.e., the ﬁrst four guides

in the how-to series that cover the four phases of the hazard

mitigation planning process) has been summarized or adapted as

it applies to historic properties and cultural resources. This guide,

therefore, is to be used in conjunction with the core four guides.

The planning process for each community or jurisdiction is unique

as each area will experience growth and change in a variety of

ways. As a result, the step-by-step sequence outlined in this guide

should be tailored to meet the needs of each jurisdiction. It should,

however, be noted that the process illustrated in this guide is based

on certain steps associated with successful planning processes.

Types of Information Found in the How-To Series

This guide, as well as the other guides in the how-to series, contains

a wide variety of information, as explained below.

Key Terminology

Historic Preservation

The process of identifying, evaluating, protecting,

preserving, and using historic properties “as a

living part of our community life and development in order

to give a sense of orientation to the American people” (pre

amble of the National Historic Preservation Act [NHPA]).

Historic preservation is a ﬁeld that allows communities to

preserve a sense of place, a unique identity, and a link to the

past. It is an important tool not only for educating residents

and visitors about the history of a place, but it can also help

maintain community pride and a sense of belonging.

The historic preservation movement began as a reaction to

the destruction of important historic properties. Similarly, the

emergency management movement began as a reaction to

the devastating effect of natural disasters. Over time, both

ﬁelds have evolved in a similar manner. Today both move

ments are more proactive and planning-oriented, and focus

on prevention.

Historic Property

Any prehistoric or historic district, site, building, structure,

or object included in, or eligible for inclusion in, the National

by the Secretary of the Interior. This term includes artifacts,

records, and remains that are related to and located within

such properties. The term includes properties of traditional

religions and cultural importance to an Indian Tribe or Native

Hawaiian organization and that meet the National Register

criteria. (Source: 36 CFR Part 800.16 [I][1].)

Cultural Resources

Non-living examples of objects acquired and preserved

because of their potential value as examples, as refer

ence material, or as objects of artistic, historic, scientiﬁc,

educational, or social importance, either individually or as

a collection.

Cultural resources include “moveable heritage,” such as

collections of artifacts, statuary, artwork, and important docu

ments or repositories. Often housed in libraries, museums,

archives, historical repositories, or historic properties, these

resources range from three-dimensional examples such as

sculptures, historic furnishings, family heirlooms, or textiles,

to two-dimensional examples such as family records, writ-

ten history or memorabilia, old photographs and maps, and

other archival materials.

viii

STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

introduction

Evaluate Your Community and Test Your Knowledge

Evaluation tests are included to help you assess your jurisdiction’s

current planning process. In addition, the questions under “Test

Your Knowledge” are designed to assess your comprehension and

understanding of the material covered in the guide.

Icons

In order to aid the reader, the how-to series has developed a system

of icons that should be used to interpret information contained in

the sidebars. Speciﬁc icons are the following:

The “Caution” icon contains important information for avoiding

common pitfalls that can lead to unsuccessful planning processes.

The “DMA” icon provides information relating to the hazard

mitigation planning requirements outlined in the Disaster

Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA 2000) regulations.

The “Glossary” icon identiﬁes terms and concepts for which a

detailed explanation is provided in Appendix A – Glossary.

The “States” icon identiﬁes guidance focused solely on the role

of the State. Although much of the information will be the same

for Tribal, State, and local governments, there are different

requirements under DMA 2000 for Tribal, State, and local hazard

mitigation plans. If a Tribe chooses to prepare a DMA 2000 State

plan to be eligible for funding as a grantee, it should pay special

attention to the States icon. Furthermore, States have additional

responsibilities to assist local jurisdictions and Tribes in their

planning efforts.

The “Tips” icon includes case studies and helpful hints that can be

used in the planning process.

Version 1.0 May 2005

introduction

Library

A mitigation planning “Library” has been included in Appendix B.

The library has a wealth of information, including Web addresses,

reference sources, and other useful reference materials. All of the

Web sites and references listed in the how-to guide are included in

the Library.

Worksheets

Finally, to help track progress, worksheets have been developed to

accompany activities in the guide. Blank worksheets are included

in Appendix C – Worksheets. You can duplicate the blank forms in

Appendix C and use them to organize your work as you implement

the hazard mitigation planning process.

The remaining sections of this guide cover Phases 1 through 4 of

the hazard mitigation planning process as they apply to historic

properties and cultural resources.

phase 1

1-1

Version 1.0 May 2005

rganizing resources to consider historic properties and

cultural resources in the hazard mitigation planning

process involves identifying and assembling the necessary

technical information, funding, staff, and political and public

support. The process cannot progress—much less succeed—

without the marshaling of these resources.

The three steps discussed in this section to integrate historic

properties and cultural resources into the hazard mitigation plan

supplement the guidance provided in FEMA 386-1, Getting Started:

Building Support for Mitigation Planning.

These steps are described

below:

Step 1. This step entails assessing the level of awareness

and support for protecting these assets. This step

also involves identifying resources for hazard

mitigation related to historic properties and

cultural resources.

Step 2. This step focuses on identifying and recruiting

historic preservation and cultural resource experts

to join the planning team, should such expertise

not already be represented by the core planning

team members.

Step 3. This section offers advice and provides useful tips

on how to effectively engage the public during key

points in the hazard mitigation planning process.

At the completion of this phase, you should have a clear sense

of the community’s level of support for historic preservation.

In addition, you should have identiﬁed available sources of

information, team members should have been recruited, and a

public outreach campaign should have been developed.

organize

resources

1-2

STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

National Register

of Historic Places

With the passage of the

National Historic Preserva

tion Act (NHPA) in 1966, the National

ment’s ofﬁcial list of historic proper-

ties that have met certain evaluation

criteria (see Criteria for Evaluation in

Appendix A – Glossary) and are legally

recognized as historically signiﬁcant

in American history, architecture,

archeology, engineering, and culture.

Both Federal and State agencies are

involved in the maintenance and ex-

pansion of the National Register, which

is administered by the Secretary of

the Interior under authority of Section

101(a)(1)(A) of the NHPA and the Na

tional Park Service (NPS). Properties

are usually listed through a process

managed by State Historic Preserva

tion Ofﬁcers (SHPOs) or Tribal Historic

Preservation Ofﬁcers (THPOs). Typi

cally, these properties are at least 50

years old and demonstrate a degree

of integrity of historic materials suf

ficient to convey important historic

information.

In its broadest sense, the National Reg

ister is a planning tool that highlights

the importance of properties worthy of

preservation due to their local, State,

Tribal, or national signiﬁcance. The

listing currently contains information

on more than 77,000 formally listed

properties.

Many types of properties can be con

sidered historic. These include:

Buildings—including residential,

commercial, industrial, and agricul

tural constructs;

Structures—such as dams, bridges,

canals, tunnels, or bandstands;

Objects—such as signs, monu

ments, markers, or statuary;

Sites—such as gardens, estate

grounds, battleﬁelds, landscapes,

and archeological sites; and

Districts—such as neighborhoods,

commercial areas, or college cam

puses. Sometimes a listing is made

for a grouping of buildings that lack

individual distinction but together

have been judged to be signiﬁcant.



Step 1. Assess Community Support

Before proceeding with Step 1, it is important for your planning

team to ﬁrst develop a broad deﬁnition of historic properties and

cultural resources. As the planning effort includes input from a

broad cross-section of community members, varying deﬁnitions

for what constitutes a historic property/cultural resource may be

encountered (see Appendix A – Glossary). Your planning team

can reﬁne the broad deﬁnition as you receive this input. Once

agreement on the deﬁnition has been reached, it should form

the basis for identifying the properties and resources that will be

assessed in Phase 2.

As the planning team determines the readiness of the community

to undertake the hazard mitigation planning process, it is

important to assess the level of knowledge, support, and resources

available for carrying out hazard mitigation efforts for historic

properties and cultural resources. If it is determined that public

ofﬁcials and citizens do not consider it important to address

historic properties and cultural resources in the hazard mitigation

plan, then activities suggested in Step 1, Task C in FEMA 386-1,

Getting Started: Building Support for Mitigation Planning

should be

reviewed in an effort to raise awareness and build support for

overcoming obstacles.

Assessing Community Awareness of Historic Properties

and Cultural Resources

The following questions can be used to determine the level of

public support and awareness of historic properties and cultural

resources in the community:

How much do appointed or elected ofﬁcials and citizens know

about historic properties and cultural resources in hazard

areas?

Do ofﬁcials and citizens understand that steps can be taken to

reduce damage to historic properties and cultural resources

from hazards?

Is there a difference between the perceived risk by the

community and the actual risk to historic properties and

cultural resources in the event of a disaster?

Do elected and appointed ofﬁcials understand how local,

State, and Federal levels each support the protection of

historic properties and cultural resources?



1-3

Version 1.0 May 2005

organize resources

Who in the community will be affected by the

mitigation actions implemented to protect

historic properties and cultural resources?

Which members of the community will most

beneﬁt from mitigation actions?

Who in the community may resist and why?

Is there a historic preservation ofﬁce or

department in your community? Is there staff

with historic preservation capabilities with

whom you can collaborate?

Is there an existing historic preservation plan

in the community, State, or Tribe?

If there is a comprehensive plan, does

it contain a historic preservation or

conservation element?

The following methods can be used to obtain

answers to these key questions:

Conduct interviews with local ofﬁcials and

citizens;

Examine local newspapers;

Participate in community meetings;

Visit local historical societies, museums, and

architectural review boards; and

Develop and distribute questionnaires/

surveys.

In addition, if a community contains a locally designated historic

district or one that is listed in the National Register, it is more

likely than not that many residents will already be conversant with

preservation issues and appreciate the importance of protecting

historic properties and cultural resources from disasters. In

such areas, local historical societies, neighborhood groups, and

individual advocates may already be promoting the preservation of

historic properties.



Signiﬁcant historic properties sometimes have a simple

design, such as this typical frontier school house built in

1910 in South Pass City, Fremont County, Wyoming.

Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,

HABS, HABS WYO, 7-SOPAC, 19-9 and 19-6

Properties Less

Than 50 Years Old

While properties in the Na-

tional Register are typically

50 years old or older, those properties

that are less than 50 years old will

qualify if they are integral parts of

historic districts that do qualify or they

fall into certain special categories. For

a description of these categories, see

National Register Bulletin #15, How to

Apply the National Register Criteria for

Evaluation.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Resources Available for Hazard Mitigation

Many resources are available for the preservation and protection

of historic properties and cultural resources. Enlisting the aid of

the State Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer (SHPO) or Tribal Historic

Preservation Ofﬁcer (THPO) at the start of the hazard mitigation

planning process will be invaluable for identifying available

resources, and for determining which agencies or individuals may

have the capabilities to implement mitigation actions, provide

funding, etc. The following section focuses on three key sources to

consult to obtain more information on available resources: SHPO/

THPOs, archivists or collections managers, and planners.

SHPO/THPOs. Section 106 of NHPA requires the SHPO/

THPO to provide comment and to be consulted with on

federally funded undertakings—including local actions

using Federal funds or requiring Federal approval—that may

affect historic properties listed in, or eligible for listing in,

the National Register (please see Appendix A – Glossary and

Appendix B – Library for more information on SHPO/THPO

responsibilities). SHPOs and THPOs generally maintain lists

or databases of signiﬁcant historic properties and cultural

resources.

It is important for your team to establish and maintain

an open line of communication with the SHPO/THPO,

especially if the planning area includes Tribal lands or areas

historically associated with Native American groups. SHPO/

THPO ofﬁce staff may be able to help your team identify

nearby communities that have faced similar challenges

in incorporating historic property and cultural resource

considerations into hazard mitigation plans.

It is a good idea to contact your SHPO/THPO directly at the

start of the hazard mitigation planning process. When doing

so, you should provide a brief description of your planning

project and any known historic properties in the community.

Although the SHPO/THPO may respond directly, he or she

most likely will delegate this task to the staff member most

familiar with your community’s needs. This staff member will

be the primary contact throughout the hazard mitigation

planning process.

Do not be surprised if the SHPO/THPO does not respond

instantly. Many, if not most, SHPO/THPO ofﬁces are

understaffed and under-budgeted, with many other



State Historic

Preservation

Ofﬁcer (SHPO)

In cooperation with Fed-

eral agencies, SHPOs are responsible

for directing and conducting a compre

hensive statewide survey of historic

properties and maintaining inventories

of such properties under Section

101(b)(3) of the NHPA. These State of

ﬁcials maintain important information

on historic properties in inventories

and in statewide historic preserva

tion plans, and are required to have

qualiﬁed preservation professionals on

staff. Federal agencies are directed in

Section 110 of the NHPA to cooperate

with SHPOs in establishing programs

to locate, inventory, and nominate

historic properties to the National

ofﬁce typically will have a designated

SHPO and a deputy SHPO, and will

likely have a support staff comprising

archeologists, historians, planners, ar

chitects, and archivists. The structure

of a preservation ofﬁce differs from

State to State and Tribe to Tribe.

Tribal Historic

Preservation

Ofﬁcer (THPO)

A THPO is the Tribal equivalent of

a State Historic Preservation Of

ﬁcer. The THPO may assume a role

parallel to that of State government

in administering the national historic

preservation program on Tribal lands.

Tribes will tailor their programs to ac-

commodate Tribal values and address

Tribal priorities. The 1992 Amend-

ments to the NHPA recognized the

Tribes’ growing capabilities in historic

preservation and the Tribes’ rightful

place in the national program. Speciﬁ-

cally, the 1992 Amendments provide

for Tribes, at their request, to assume

responsibilities for such functions as

identifying and maintaining inventories

of culturally significant properties,

nominating properties to the National

review of Federal agency projects on

Tribal lands, and administering educa-

tional programs on the importance of

preserving historic properties.

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See Appendix A

The Glossary contains

more information on the

following major pieces of

legislation that affect historic preserva

tion initiatives:

The National Historic Preservation

Act (NHPA), particularly Section

106 and

The National Environmental Policy

Act (NEPA).



communities and projects demanding their attention. It is not

uncommon to wait one month or longer before receiving a

response to initial formal inquiries.

Archivist or collections manager at the local museum. Over

the past decade, cultural institutions have made great strides

in developing disaster preparedness plans. These documents

will assist in understanding the range and scope of cultural

resource assets in the affected area, and will ensure that the

initial inventory includes special collections.

Planners at local or regional planning ofﬁces.

The local or

regional planning ofﬁce is a good source of information on

historic properties that have been surveyed or designated as

historic at the local level. If your community is a Certiﬁed

Local Government (CLG), it should be the repository for

local survey data. Also, historic properties and cultural

resources may be identiﬁed in the preservation element of

the local comprehensive plan or capital improvement plan.

Local or regional transportation departments and planning

associations may also have previously identiﬁed historic



Historic Property

and Cultural

Resource Survey

A process by which historic

properties and cultural resources that

are potentially signiﬁcant to the com

munity are documented. Typically a

survey involves the collection of docu-

mentary photography and completion

of survey forms to describe each

property or resource. This description

includes its landscape (if a property),

construction materials, geographic

location, and potential significance

(see sample survey on page 2-15 and

Step 3 in Phase 2 for more details on

conducting a survey).

Historic Preservation Element

in Comprehensive Plans

Comprehensive plans provide a framework for regulating the built

environment. State regulations deﬁne the elements that a plan

must contain. These elements typically include:

Future land use element;

Housing element;

Economic development element;

Capital improvement element;

Transportation element; and

Conservation element.

The policies in the comprehensive plan are intended to minimize incompatible

use, avoid urban sprawl, provide for adequate infrastructure facilities, prevent

damage or disruption to natural resources, and preserve the character of

the community. These policies and their related goals and objectives provide

a vision for the community’s future. The conservation element typically en

compasses the protection of natural resources as well as historic properties

and cultural resources. This element includes an analysis of the effects of

future land use on historic properties and cultural resources and policies,

goals, and objectives for preserving these resources. This element will also

discuss local mechanisms such as Historic Preservation Commissions that

designate and protect historic properties and cultural resources under juris-

dictional zoning authority.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Certiﬁed Local Governments

Local governments strengthen their local historic preservation ef-

forts by achieving Certiﬁed Local Government (CLG) status from

the NPS. NPS and State governments, through their SHPOs, pro

vide technical assistance and small matching grants to these communities.

In turn, NPS and States gain the beneﬁt of local government partnership in

the national historic preservation program. Another incentive for participat

ing in the CLG program is the pool of matching grant funds SHPOs set

aside to fund CLG historic preservation subgrant projects—at least 10% of

the State’s annual Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) grant allocation. Grant

funds are distributed through the HPF grant program, administered by NPS

and SHPOs.

Projects eligible for funding and the criteria used to select them are developed

annually by the SHPO. Funding decisions are made by the State, not NPS.

Among the kinds of activities funded are the following: architectural, historical,

and archeological surveys; oral histories; nominations to the National Regis

ter; staff work for historic preservation commissions; design guidelines and

preservation plans; public outreach materials such as publications, videos,

exhibits, and brochures; training for commission members and staff; and

rehabilitation or restoration of National Register listed properties.

Cultural Resource

Inventories

Counties (e.g., in Florida)

sometimes have a county

wide cultural resources inventory,

which also resides with the SHPO’s

ofﬁce, that may include vulnerability

determinations and preservation rec

ommendations. SHPOs may also have

grant funding available to undertake

these types of broad surveys.

properties and cultural resources. If a community has already

identiﬁed priorities for future preservation, hazard mitigation

planning can be integrated into existing and ongoing

preservation planning efforts.

Step 2. Build the Planning Team

Whether you have an established team or are in the process of

forming one, it is important to assess the team members’ expertise

and capabilities to address historic properties and cultural resource

considerations and ﬁll in any gaps. Individuals or agencies to

consider adding to your planning team include:

State and regional agencies that plan for historic properties

and cultural resources, including your SHPO and State

archivist;

Tribal representatives, including your THPO (as noted

previously, it is important to identify Tribal nations that may

have an important historical relationship with your planning

area);

State, regional, and local historical societies;

Historic preservation planners knowledgeable about Federal

and State preservation legislation, local ordinances, and

possible funding sources;

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Preservation architects and other professionals who specialize

in the rehabilitation and restoration of historic structures;

Professional and amateur archeologists and/or archeology

departments of universities and colleges in your region;

Local museums, libraries, archives, and repositories of

collections, art, books, and artifacts;

Non-proﬁt historic preservation organizations and historic

neighborhood organizations;

Businesses and development organizations for historic

commercial districts and “Main Street” programs; and

Federal government agencies, such as FEMA, the National

Park Service (NPS), and the National Archives.



Preservation

Task Force

If substantial community

support and interest is

shown for protecting local historic

properties and cultural resources,

your planning team may wish to es

tablish a dedicated historic and cultural

resource preservation task force or

committee. This task force or commit-

tee would be charged with reporting

back to the larger hazard mitigation

planning team.

Including Living Ties to the Past –

Traditional Cultural Properties

Native American Tribal nations and other ethnic

or social groups, even from a great distance,

may feel a strong cultural connection with certain historic

properties and cultural resources, including what are known

as Traditional Cultural Properties (TCPs). TCPs are deﬁned

as historic properties that are eligible for inclusion in the Na-

tional Register because of their association with the cultural

practices or beliefs of a living community. These practices are

rooted in that community’s history and are important in main

taining the continuity of traditional beliefs and practices—in

essence, the cultural identity of the community.

Examples of places important to sustaining the traditional

beliefs of a community might include “vision quest” sites

important to Tribal groups of the northern plains, or sand

bars along the Rio Grande River that help maintain cer

emonial practices of the Sandia Indians. Other examples

include urban neighborhoods that are the traditional home

of a particular cultural group. For example, Honolulu’s Chi

natown embodies the distinctive cultural value of the city’s

Asian community in its architecture, landscaping, signage,

and ornamentation.

Some communities may have several different histories

and collections of historic properties and cultural resources;

however, not all of these may be formally documented.

Many social and ethnic groups may lack ofﬁcial published

histories or historical societies, but nevertheless have a

strong connection to speciﬁc resources. It is therefore im

portant to make an additional effort to research and identify

communities with alternative histories and to include these

communities and their resources in the hazard mitigation

planning process.

Mount Shasta, a sacred site to northern California

Tribes.

Source: NSBO, http://www.byways.org

View of Devil’s Tower, near the Belle Fourche River in

Wyoming, taken in 1888. This site is sacred to several

Native American Tribes.

Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs

Division, LC-DIG-ppmsc-02642

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

If these individuals or representatives from the listed agencies

do not have time to join your team, then establish an ongoing

dialogue with them throughout the planning process.

It is important to ensure that the assembled planning team

includes interested citizens and local experts as well. It may be

helpful to contact your SHPO for referrals of qualiﬁed individuals.

An equitable and diverse representation on your planning team will

enhance your planning efforts and help build community support

for hazard mitigation.

Use Worksheet #1: Expand the Planning Team to identify others

to invite to join your planning effort (see Appendix C for a blank

worksheet).

Step 3. Engage the Public

There are several ways to obtain public input on the protection

of historic properties and cultural resources during your hazard

mitigation planning process. Frequently used methods include

public meetings, questionnaires, and visual deﬁnition surveys.

Public meetings are useful for educating the community on the

overall hazard mitigation planning process, for identifying historic

properties and cultural resources, for obtaining input on the

various hazard mitigation alternatives available for protecting these

resources, and for keeping the public up to date on the progress of

your implementation efforts. For these reasons, your team should,

at a minimum, develop a schedule for holding meetings at certain

key stages in the hazard mitigation planning process. These key

stages are:

At the beginning of the planning process to inform the public

of your planning efforts and to hear about what historic

properties and cultural resources are important to the

community;

At the conclusion of the risk assessment to report on your

ﬁndings;

When developing your goals and discussing alternative

mitigation actions for your mitigation strategy; and

As you implement the plan to inform the public of progress

made to date.



Public

Participation

A carefully designed public

participation process can

often ensure that critical information

about certain types of historic proper

ties and cultural resources reaches the

project team. For example, in many

communities across the United States,

selecting members of the project team

who are ﬂuent in Spanish is a basic

but important step that inﬂuences the

success of the information gathering

process. This is true because many

cultures place emphasis on teaching

about the importance of certain types

of historic properties and cultural

resources through oral history and

tradition, rather than relying upon tra

ditional written source materials. This

transmission of cultural information

often occurs through that community’s

native language, which may not be

English. Without a critical ear attuned

to this different mode of communica-

tion, the information gathering process

may result in an incomplete, narrowly

drawn picture of the heritage of all

groups within a given geographic

area, which in turn diminishes your

hazard mitigation plan being actively

embraced and used by the community

as a whole.

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Dramatic Graphics as a Powerful

Tool for Public Outreach

Presenting graphic material from past disaster events can help members of

a community visualize the potential impacts that a modern-day disaster may

have on its historic properties and cultural resources.

San Francisco 1906 earthquake and ﬁre, April 18-21.

Source: NOAA/NGDC

Meetings could be held in

conjunction with open gatherings

of historical societies and

historic preservation groups,

neighborhood and social or

ethnic organizations, or planning

advisory groups or municipal

governments. If residents are

invited to participate in the

process early on and to recount

local history on their terms,

there is a better chance that

implementation of the plan will

succeed. Local input is especially

important for the valuation of

local resources; even when a

local structure is not eligible for

listing in the National Register, it

may still be very important to the

community.

If controversy is expected, it may

be advisable to hold the public

meeting at a neutral location,

such as a church hall, using a

trained facilitator. For increased

credibility, all public meetings

(whether controversial or not)

should be advertised (consider

using stakeholders, creating

posters for display, and contacting

media sources as options for

advertising the meetings).

Whose History Is It Anyway?

Deciphering the importance of historic properties and cultural re-

sources can sometimes be a difﬁcult and daunting task, and must

be approached with caution and sensitivity. Part of this difﬁculty

comes from one’s own cultural perspective, or “world view.” Like a tinted

lens in a pair of glasses, this process can result in seeing people only from

the point of view of one’s own culture. Commonly called ethnocentrism, this

misperception can result in a dominant cultural group completely looking

past what is critically important to another cultural group. For example, in

the American Southwest, simple memorials such as roadside crosses within

Hispanic communities may not be perceived by those outside the Hispanic

community as anything of importance, and certainly nothing worth preserving.

But these objects, called “descansos” (literally “places of rest”) reﬂect the

continuation of a tradition brought to the United States by Spanish colonists

in the 17th century. Originally erected at places where a funeral procession

paused to rest on the journey between church and cemetery, these memorials

have become a symbol of interrupted journeys and deaths as a destination

along our highways. To Hispanic community members, humble objects such

as these often serve as tangible links to beliefs, customs, and practices that

mark the existence of one or more living communities.

For more information, see “Introduction/Dios da y Dios quita” from Descansos:

An Interrupted Journey, Rudolfo Anaya, Juan Estevan Arellano, and Denise

Chavez (Del Norte, 1995).

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Other methods for garnering public input on historic properties

and cultural resources include the use of brief questionnaires and a

Visual Deﬁnition Survey display poster (see example). In the Visual

Deﬁnition Survey, residents “vote” using a multi-voting system

(described in FEMA 386-3, Developing the Mitigation Plan, pp. 2-26 to

2-27) on the types and locations of historic properties and cultural

resources they feel best demonstrate local history and contribute to

a distinctive sense of place.

Display poster used to solicit input from Milton residents.

Source: Looking to the Future, Alternatives for Reducing Flood-Related

Damages in Historic Communities, Milton, Pennsylvania, June 2002

An Inclusive

Planning Process

Without early and frequent

public participation, your

hazard mitigation planning effort may

provoke misunderstandings and objec-

tions from some community members.

Although public meetings convened by

your hazard mitigation planning team

or historic preservation task force

can provide a forum for public input,

they may not be enough to bridge the

gap. Consider other opportunities for

public input—for example, engaging a

local interest group in an open-ended

dialogue, attending open meetings of

other organizations, or encouraging

their members to attend an upcoming

meeting of your hazard mitigation plan

ning team. For community members

who are unable to participate because

of other commitments, outreach in the

form of short postcards to solicit input,

or a project Web site or poster board,

may help them feel included in the

hazard mitigation planning process.

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A Community Success Story

The Borough of Milton, Pennsylvania, is a ﬂood-prone community located

on the Western Branch of the Susquehanna River. The Borough contains a

large historic district that has endured a long history of repetitive ﬂooding.

To reduce long-term damage from ﬂooding events, the Borough considered

acquisition and demolition of some of the district’s oldest structures. Although

many citizens remembered the devastation brought on by past ﬂooding,

they also remembered the unfortunate wound inﬂicted on their community

by the demolition of over 400 buildings—many of them historic—following

the 1972 ﬂood.

To address ﬂooding while adopting a preservationist approach, the Borough

of Milton worked with concerned citizens, preservation advocates, a regional

planner, and representatives from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management

Agency (PEMA) and Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission

(SHPO) on the development of a community-based hazard mitigation plan

ning process that actively incorporated information about historic properties.

Working with FEMA, a team of historians, a preservation architect, and a

hazard mitigation planner, the Borough organized and sponsored a series

of public meetings to identify and focus on broad, common goals for mitiga

tion actions that will result in improved protection of the Borough’s historic

properties.

More information on Milton’s planning process for historic ﬂood-prone proper

ties is online at http://www.fema.gov/ehp/milton.shtm.

Summary

By the end of Phase 1, you should have collected readily available

information on existing efforts to protect historic properties and

cultural resources, building your understanding of the level of

support that exists in your community for protecting these assets.

You will also have established a balanced planning team comprised

of members with cultural resources expertise and knowledge of

the planning area. In addition, you should have identiﬁed a variety

of approaches for engaging the public in the planning process.

Relationships formed at this stage of the planning process will

be valuable throughout the creation and implementation of the

hazard mitigation plan.

In Phase 2, your team will identify hazards that affect local historic

properties and cultural resources, inventory those properties and

resources, and create a method for deciding which resources are

preservation priorities. It will also assess the vulnerability of these

assets and estimate the associated amount of potential loss.

This is the end of Phase 1. Before proceeding to Phase 2, please

take a moment to answer the following questions to determine

if you have adequately assessed the resources needed to move

Source: Looking to the Future, Alternatives for

Reducing Flood-Related Damages in Historic

Communities, Milton, Pennsylvania, June 2002

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

forward with integrating historic property and cultural resource

considerations into the hazard mitigation plan. These are followed

by a Review Test that you should use as a learning aid to better

understand the topics covered in Phase 1.

Evaluate Your Community

What are the obstacles to historic properties and cultural

resource preservation in your community? How will you

overcome them?

Are there any gaps in the range of interests and expertise

represented on your planning team? If so, who will be added

to your team to ﬁll those gaps?

What additional outreach is needed to inform the public

about your planning efforts to integrate historic properties

and cultural resources in your hazard mitigation plan?

Review Test (Select one answer for each question.)

What types of resources may be considered historic?

Buildings such as houses, schools, churches, and factories.

Cemeteries, battleﬁelds, and gardens.

Bridges, dams, and canals.

All of the above.

A State Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer is:

A State archivist or records manager.

A person designated by the Governor of each State who is

responsible for carrying out historic preservation programs

under State and Federal law.

Responsible for protecting historic properties in State

parks.

All of the above.

A Tribal Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer is:

Equivalent of a SHPO, but responsible for historic

properties and cultural resources on Tribal lands.

A resource that can help you develop information

regarding traditional cultural properties.

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A person who can help you understand the distinctions

between generally recognized historic properties and

properties of importance to Native American or Indian

communities.

All of the above.

Early and active input from the public is needed to:

Gain support for historic preservation and address

community concerns and misconceptions.

Determine the best time of year to undertake renovations.

Find someone who knows what a SHPO is.

None of the above.

(Answers in Appendix D – Answers to Review Tests.)

phase 2

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risks

Overview

n Phase I, you identiﬁed, assembled, and organized the

resources necessary for integrating historic properties and

cultural resources into the hazard mitigation plan. In Phase 2,

“Assess Risks,” your team will use these resources to conduct a risk

assessment of the historic properties and cultural resources located

in your jurisdiction.

There are four primary steps associated with conducting risk

assessments that this Phase of the guide will cover:

Step 1. Identify the hazards that can affect your community.

Step 2. Proﬁle hazards to determine hazard-prone areas and

magnitude of each hazard.

Step 3. Inventory the historic properties and cultural resources

vulnerable to those hazards, assess vulnerability of

these assets, and establish preservation priorities by

determining which assets are most valuable to the

community.

Step 4. Estimate the associated amount of potential losses.

To assist you through Steps 3 and 4, the primary focus of this

section, the guide includes worksheets ﬁlled in with sample

information.

At the end of Phase 2, your planning team should have a clear

picture of the historic properties and cultural resources that are

important to the community; how vulnerable these resources are

to hazards; and the cost of their loss, replacement, or repair due to

a hazard event. The end-product of this phase will be a prioritized

list (or preservation hierarchy) of historic properties and cultural

resources for protection in the community.

Risk Assessment

Measuring the potential

for property damage, eco-

nomic loss, injury, and

death that may result from both natural

and manmade hazards. Speciﬁcally, it

involves identifying potential hazards

and assessing a community’s ability

to survive them, diminish their impact,

or avoid them completely. Risk assess

ment is central to the hazard mitigation

planning process, and is described

fully in FEMA 386-2, Understanding

Your Risks: Identifying Hazards and

Estimating Losses.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Steps 1 and 2. Identify

and Proﬁle Hazards

Since hazard identiﬁcation is essential to the mitigation plan, it

is likely that the planning team has already identiﬁed the hazards

that are likely to affect the jurisdiction and has already developed

a hazard proﬁle. This information should be used as the starting

point for accomplishing Steps 3 and 4 of the risk assessment

process as it relates to historic properties and cultural resources.

There is no need to repeat Steps 1 and 2, as the goal is to integrate

cultural resource considerations into the existing hazard mitigation

planning process. In addition, Steps 1 and 2 are described in FEMA

386-2, Understanding Your Risks: Identifying Hazards and Estimating

Losses.

In preparation for Step 3, review the identiﬁed hazards that exist

within the planning area and their proﬁles.

Step 3. Inventory Historic Property

and Cultural Resource Assets

In this Step, the historic properties and cultural resources that are

most likely to be affected by a hazard event will be determined.

Speciﬁcally, your planning team will:

Develop and map a general inventory of historic property and

cultural resource assets located in the planning area.

Overlay the map of identiﬁed hazards developed in Step 2 of

the risk assessment process with the general inventory map

of historic properties and cultural resources in the planning

area. This will provide the needed data for identifying which

properties and resources are located in hazard-prone areas.

Review the map of historic properties and cultural resources

located in hazard-prone areas and determine the number and

value of these assets.

Compile property data and characteristics for each resource

that may be potentially impacted. This can be accomplished

either by using a geographic information system (GIS) or by

conducting a survey. Note: this information will be needed

to accurately estimate potential losses in Step 4 of the risk

assessment process.



Geographic

Effects of

Hazards

Some hazards will affect

the entire planning area (e.g., winter

storms, tornadoes, and droughts),

and others will only affect certain

geographically determined areas (e.g.,

ﬂoodplains, seismic zones, and urban-

wildland interface zones).

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assess risks

Review the property data and characteristics of each property

and establish preservation priorities. This information will be

incorporated into Phase 3 of the hazard mitigation planning

process.

Before starting Step 3, there are a few considerations to keep

in mind with regard to assessing the vulnerability of historic

properties and cultural resources.

1. Characteristics of Historic Properties

and Cultural Resources

In determining a community’s preservation priorities, an

assessment should be made of each resource’s vulnerability

potential. Unfortunately, there is no easy formula for predicting

how a historic property or cultural resource will perform during

a disaster. For example, determining which structural systems in

buildings will be superior is dependent upon a wide variety of

factors, most particularly, the type of hazard confronted.

In addition, the age of a structure cannot be considered a

predominant factor in determining whether a resource will

perform well in a disaster. It is often assumed that older structural

systems and materials used in historic buildings will perform far

worse than recent code-driven construction. This is not always the

case, as some historic structural systems were designed with far

greater structural support than necessary.



Vernacular

Historic

Construction

Methods

Buildings designed without the aid of

an architect or engineer can some

times better withstand damage from

certain types of disasters than modern

construction techniques. These prop

erties may actually be able to outper

form recent construction in certain

disaster events because their essential

structural systems may be better able

to sustain lateral vibrations and pres

sure than buildings constructed more

recently. Examples of such traditional

“over design” include the nineteenth-

century stone or brick masonry bank

barns commonly found throughout the

Mid-Atlantic region. Reinforced with

heavy timber framing, these barns

typically possess a structural capac-

ity far exceeding their actual use. On

the other hand, the structure of some

historic buildings may emphasize ﬂex

ibility over strength. These buildings

may be able to withstand the seismic

force from an earthquake quite well by

dissipating it throughout a larger area

of the building. Examples of this type

of construction are the small-scale

wood-frame houses built in the San

Francisco Bay Area during the late

nineteenth century.

Accounting for

Peculiar Design

Advantages and

Vulnerabilities

You should consult a qualiﬁed structural

engineer or a design professional with

experience in historic building rehabili-

tation to conduct a detailed evaluation

of historic properties in your inventory.

Since ﬁnancial resources will likely not

permit a detailed assessment to be

carried out on each historic property,

you should focus on conducting your

inventory ﬁrst in the most signiﬁcant

hazard-prone areas, and then refer to

your preservation hierarchy (see Task

B in the next section) for the order in

which you can complete your inventory

over time.

Rehabilitation and Alteration

As you read this guide, keep in mind the following clariﬁcations.

Rehabilitation has one meaning in the preservation planning

context and another in the context of hazard mitigation planning.

When design experts talk about rehabilitation, they usually mean taking ac

tions that help preserve the distinctive character of a historic building while

allowing for reasonable change to meet new needs. In the hazard mitigation

context, when mitigation planners mention rehabilitation, they mean retroﬁt-

ting a structure or taking steps to reduce its vulnerability to hazards (e.g.,

ﬂood-prooﬁng or seismic strengthening).

Another key word to keep in mind is alteration. Alteration usually has a nega

tive connotation—when a historic structure or resource is said to be altered, it

may be taken to mean that the structure has changed to the extent that it no

longer is considered historic. In hazard mitigation planning, however, altering

a structure to protect it from a hazard or hazards means doing something

positive—that is, changing or strengthening a structure to better withstand

future hazard events while at the same time minimizing the impact these

changes have on the structure’s historic integrity.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Similarly, speciﬁc types of collections can better withstand the

direct effects of different disaster types. For example, paper records

are not affected by vibrations associated with earthquakes, and

certain types of art collections, such as stone sculptures, are usually

not damaged by signiﬁcant ﬂooding.

Lastly, just because a historic property or cultural resource has

survived the test of time does not necessarily mean it is hazard-

resistant. On the contrary, a number of factors may make historic

resources uniquely vulnerable to disaster-related damage. For

example, historic buildings may have been constructed in locations

without any forethought of possible future hazard events. These

include buildings sited in ﬂoodplains, or those built along early

transportation corridors, such as canals. Furthermore, a disaster

may compound damage already sustained from poor maintenance

or inappropriate alteration.

2. Threat of Terrorism and Other Manmade Hazards

In recent years, another factor has markedly contributed to the

unique vulnerability of historic properties and cultural resources—

the threat of terrorism. The high visibility, signiﬁcance, and public

accessibility of many historic resources make them attractive targets

for terrorists. Many resources are symbolic on a local, State, Tribal,

Cultural Museum Disaster

Preparedness – No Lack

of Information!

Over the past decade, concerted efforts by con-

servation professionals have resulted in a wealth of infor

mation to help cultural museums design effective plans to

better protect their unique assets. The Heritage Emergency

National Task Force is one of the oldest efforts of this type.

This coalition was formed in 1995 to help libraries and

archives, museums, historical societies, and historic sites

better protect their collections from natural disasters. The

Task Force is sponsored by the non-proﬁt Heritage Preserva

tion, Inc. and FEMA. The organization provides a wealth of

technical information on disaster response and salvage on

its Web site: http://www.heritagepreservation.org.

The Central New York Library Resources Council has pre

pared a publication entitled In the Face of Disaster—Prepar-

ing for Emergencies in Central New York: A Self-Planning

Manual for Disaster Prevention, Response, and Recovery in

Libraries, Museums, and Cultural Institutions of Central New

York State. This document provides step-by-step instructions

and worksheets to institutions on how to complete a custom-

ized disaster plan and includes three major components:

prevention, response, and recovery. See the Central New

York Library Resources Council Web site for more informa

tion: http://clrc.org.

One of the nation’s premier art museums, the Getty Museum,

located in Los Angeles, California, is also extraordinarily

active in providing information about disaster preparedness

and response. The Getty Conservation Institute serves the

conservation community through its support of scientiﬁc re

search, education and training, model ﬁeld projects, and the

dissemination of information. In addition to many on-line edu

cational articles, the Institute publishes useful guides such as

Building an Emergency Plan. For more information on these

resources, go to: http://www.getty.edu/conservation.

Other educational institutions provide high-quality informa

tion on the care and treatment of cultural resources dam-

aged through disasters. For example, a Web site entitled

“Conservation OnLine” (also known by its acronym CoOL), is

sponsored by Stanford University. This site provides detailed

information on the care and treatment of speciﬁc materials. It

also provides hotlinks to other Web sites that contain useful

case studies, information about disaster plans by type of

museum or institution, and bibliographic references. See the

CoOL Web site at http://palimpsest.stanford.edu.

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or national level, with some serving a governmental or other type

of public function. In evaluating the threat from terrorism, it

is important to identify why a resource is signiﬁcant. Properties

important to a certain social group may be targeted by enemies

of that group. Moreover, many historic buildings lack the terror-

resistant features included in many of today’s new buildings—

defensible spaces, ﬂame-retardant materials, and blast-resistant

windows (see FEMA 386-7, Integrating Manmade Hazards into

Mitigation Planning for more details on manmade hazards).

3. Learning From Historic Disasters

in Local Communities

It is recommended that your

planning team research the

community’s past experience with

disasters. Beyond providing an

indication of the community’s

resiliency and response, such

a study may reveal how local

building traditions were adapted

over time as a result of disaster

events. From the recent post-

disaster experiences of other

communities, your team may

glean valuable information about

how well historic properties and

cultural resources withstand a

disaster, and how they can be

protected from future disasters.

Above all, learning from the disaster experiences of local

communities will help to identify and evaluate hazard mitigation

alternatives for potential implementation. Historical information

on local disasters may be found in a variety of sources, including:

Disaster reports and qualitative ﬁnancial statistics archived by

FEMA or a State emergency management agency (SEMA);

Published local and regional histories;

Unpublished historical information, including collections of

memoirs, diaries, oral histories, and historical photographs;

and

Newspaper and magazine accounts of the disaster.



Assess Building

Vulnerability in

a Multi-Hazard

Context

The characteristics that enhance per-

formance during one type of hazard

event may be the very features that

make it vulnerable to damage from

another type of hazard event.

See Appendix B

Additional information re-

garding historic building

construction, performance,

and treatment standards is provided in

the Library Appendix of this guide.

Jefferson and Allen Avenues, St. Louis, Missouri, after the tornado,

May 27, 1896.

Source: NOAA Photo Library, Historic NWS Collection

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Procedures and Techniques

Task A. Determine the proportion and value of

historic property and cultural resource assets in

your community located in hazard-prone areas.

You will use Worksheet #2: Determine Extent and Value of Historic

Properties

(see the example on page 2-7 and blank worksheet in

Appendix C) for this task to determine the proportion and value of

historic property and cultural resource assets located within those

areas, or in the case of community-wide hazards, those that are

most vulnerable to the identiﬁed hazards. Your inventory should

not only identify properties and resources that merit protection,

but also demonstrate other factors, including economic value.

Worksheet #2, which was adapted from Worksheet #3a from FEMA

386-2, will help your team develop this determination.

Introduction to Worksheet # 2

To place the value of historic properties in perspective, show what

percentage of the total structures in the identiﬁed hazard area are

historic. The total number of structures in the hazard area should

have already been tabulated by the mitigation planning team. The

number and value of historic properties and cultural resources

should also be computed as a percentage of the total assets in

the community. You will be able to compute the percentage of

historic properties and their value after completing Worksheet #3:

Inventory Historic Property and Cultural Resource Assets

. In the

example included below, 15% of the historic residential structures

represents 20% of the total value of the residential stock. See FEMA

386-2 for more information.

1. Determine the location of historic property and cultural

resource assets within hazard-prone areas.

The simplest way to determine which historic and cultural resource

assets are located in hazard-prone areas is to use GIS. If your team

has access to GIS, it should overlay the community’s base map onto

a map of historic properties and cultural resources. This composite

map should then be overlain onto a map identifying the location

of hazard-prone areas in the community, such as ﬂoodplains. The

resultant map will reveal which historic properties and cultural

resources are located in hazard-prone areas, and precisely where

they are situated, by street and parcel.

To determine the speciﬁc hazard threats posed to each historic

and cultural resource, your team should repeat the last overlay

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Worksheet #2

Determine Extent and Value of Historic Properties

phase

Date: JANUARY 3, 2007 step 3

Fill in Columns 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, and 11. Fill in Columns 4 and 10 after completing Worksheet #3. Divide Column 1 by Column 2 and multiply by

100 to calculate the percentage of properties in the hazard area (Column 3). This process can be used to determine the percent value of properties

within the hazard area (Column 6), the percentage of historic properties in the community (Column 9) and their percent value (Column 12).

Type of

Structure

Number of Properties Value of Properties Number of Properties Value of Properties

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7 Column 8 Column 9 Column

Column

# of Historic Properties in Hazard

Area

# of All Properties in Hazard Area

% of Properties that Are Historic

$ Value of Historic Properties in

Hazard Area

$ Value of All Properties in Hazard

Area

Property Value of Historic Properties

as % of Total Property Value

# of Historic Properties in

Community or State

# of All Properties in Community or

State

% of Properties that Are Historic

$ Value of Historic Properties in

Community or State

$ Value of All Properties in

Community or State

Property Value of Historic Properties

as % of Total Property Value

Residential

150 1,000 15% $3 M $15 M 20% 400 2,000 20% $60 M $250 M 24%

Commercial

Industrial

Religious/

Non-proﬁt

Gov’t

Education

Total

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

using hazard-speciﬁc maps, i.e.,

maps identifying seismic zones,

ﬂood hazard areas, etc. For some

hazards, such as hurricanes and

tornadoes, a GIS layer will not be

available.

If your team does not have

access to GIS, hazard boundaries

can be hand-drawn on a map

depicting the location of historic

properties and cultural resources.

Your planning team may want

to take the locations of historic

properties recorded on tax

maps or U.S. Geological Survey

(USGS) quadrangle maps, and

map them directly onto paper

copies of ﬂoodplain maps, USGS

earthquake hazard maps, or other

hazard-related maps.

Geographic

Databases and

Data Sharing

Obtaining or creating GIS-

based information is important because

it will help your team locate concentra

tions of historic properties and cultural

resources, and also better deﬁne the

level of risk faced by your historic

properties and cultural resources. For

example, GIS data will show if historic

properties are located in ﬂoodplains,

in active earthquake zones, etc. In

addition, other planning initiatives can

be placed in a GIS, which can help

your team identify impacts to historic

properties and cultural resources that

have occurred over time.

Hurricane and storm surge damage in Galveston, Texas, September 1-10,

1900.

Source: NOAA Photo Library, Historic NWS Collection

Creating a Composite Map

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2. Compile a detailed inventory of what historic properties and

cultural resources can be damaged by a hazard event.

At this point, you will be able to compile a detailed inventory of

all of the historic properties and cultural resources found within

each of the identiﬁed hazard areas in your community. Run a query

and sort your results by the characteristics—e.g., age and type of

construction—listed in Worksheet #3: Inventory Historic Property

and Cultural Resource Assets

Introduction to Worksheet #3

Your planning team will be using Worksheet #3 throughout the

remainder of Phase 2 (see the example worksheet on page 2-10

and blank worksheet in Appendix C). It is designed to help the

team organize the information it collects on historic properties

and cultural resources, and can be used to establish preservation

priorities. Based on Worksheet 3b from FEMA 386-2, Worksheet #3

has been adapted speciﬁcally for use in assessing historic properties

and cultural resources.

For each hazard identiﬁed in Step 1, your planning team should

make a photocopy of Worksheet #3 and ﬁll in the name of the

speciﬁc hazard at the top of the sheet (e.g., ﬂood, hurricane,

and earthquake). As your team progresses through Phase 2,

information will be supplied to complete the remainder of

Worksheet #3.

For each hazard identiﬁed in Step 1, your team will use the

information from its inventory to ﬁll in Columns 1–8 of Worksheet

#3. At a minimum, your team should consider collecting the

following information on historic properties and cultural resources

identiﬁed in the inventory:

Name and Address/Location of Asset Subject to Hazard;

Date of Construction/Creation;

Type of Property/Type of Resource;

Square Footage;

Structural System;

Primary Material(s) of Property/Primary Materials of

Resource;

Current Function (for Properties);

Current Condition; and

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Inventory Historic Property and

Worksheet #

3 Cultural Resource Assets (page 1 of 3) phase

Hazard: FLOOD Date: JANUARY 8, 2007 step 3

Make a copy of a blank worksheet for each hazard of concern. Fill in the name of the hazard and the date. List the

name and address of vulnerable historic properties and cultural resources in Column 1. For each property/cultural

resource (row) ﬁll out Columns 2 to 10 to complete the information about the asset. For Columns 11 to 15, use results

from Worksheet #5 to ﬁll in the applicable columns. For Column 16, use the ranking from Column 7 of Worksheet

#4. See the Building Data Requirement table below to determine what additional columns to add to this worksheet,

depending on the hazard.

Examples of the types of information to ﬁll in for Columns 3, 5, and 6:

Column 3: Type of Property/Resource (include, but not limited to, buildings, structures, objects,

sites, and districts)

Column 5: Structural System (e.g., concrete, wood frame, and steel)

Column 6: Primary Material(s) of Property/Resource (e.g., brick veneer, concrete, and plaster)

Building Data Requirements by Hazard

Building Characteristics Flood Earthquake Tsunami Tornado

Coastal

Storm Landslide Wildﬁre

Building Type/Type of Foundation

   

Building Code Design Level/Date

of Construction

     

Roof Material

  

Roof Construction

  

Vegetation



Topography

   

Distance from the Hazard Zone

    

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Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7 Column 8 Column 9

Name and Address of

Asset Subject to Hazard

Date of

Construction/

Creation

Type of

Property/

Type of

Resource

Square

Footage

Structural

System

Primary

Material(s)

of Property/

Resource

Current

Function/Use

Current

Condition

Is Owner

Interested in

Mitigation?

(Yes/No)

HAZARDVILLE OPERA HOUSE

50 MAIN STREET

1905

OMMERCIAL

UILDING

40,000 CONCRETE

BRICK VENEER,

CONCRETE, PLASTER

CEILING

COMMUNITY

ENTER

GOOD

YES (TOWN IS

OWNER)

EHMAN GARDENS

CORNER OF MAIN AND NORTH

1840 PARK 43,560 N/A

ARBLE STATUES,

RANITE GRAVESTONES,

METAL HISTORIC

STREETSCAPE

FURNITURE, HEIRLOOM

ROSES

PUBLIC GARDEN EXCELLENT

YES (TOWN IS

OWNER)

Inventory Historic Property and

Worksheet #

3 Cultural Resource Assets (page 2 of 3) phase

Hazard: FLOOD Date: JANUARY 8, 2007 step 3

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Column 1 Column 10 Column 11 Column 12 Column 13 Column 14 Column 15 Column 16

Name and Address of

Asset Subject to Hazard

(same as previous page)

Level of Property

Vulnerability (High,

Medium, Low)

Loss to

Structure ($)

Loss to

Contents ($)

Loss of

Function or

Use ($)

Displacement

Cost

Total Loss for

Hazard Event

Level of Community

Value for Ranking

Purposes (High,

Medium, Low)

HAZARDVILLE OPERA HOUSE

50 MAIN STREET

MEDIUM $300 K $150 K $30 K $190 K $670 K MEDIUM

LEHMAN GARDENS

CORNER OF MAIN AND NORTH

HIGH N/A $20 K N/A N/A $20 K HIGH

Inventory Historic Property and

Worksheet #

3 Cultural Resource Assets (page 3 of 3) phase

Hazard: FLOOD Date: JANUARY 8, 2007 step 3

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Building Characteristics (for Properties) (Building Type/Type

of Foundation, Roof Materials, Roof Construction, Vegetation,

Topography, Distance from the Hazard Zone).

Additional information to collect for your inventory includes:

Tax ID Number;

Distinguishing Characteristics; and

Party Responsible for Maintenance.

The ﬁrst eight items in this list correspond to the ﬁrst eight

columns in Worksheet #3. The building characteristics needed for

the ninth item will depend on the hazard type. See the Building

Data Requirement table on page 1 of Worksheet #3 for applicable

data and add the necessary number of columns to the worksheet.

This information should be entered into a computerized database

in order to run queries and analyses. A spreadsheet modeled on

Worksheet #3 can serve the purpose, as this data should eventually

be imported into, or linked to, a GIS. If limited time is available

to address all of the historic properties and cultural resources

contained in your community, consider using representative

properties for initial planning purposes.

Conducting a Survey of Historic

Properties and Cultural Resources

If an existing inventory of historic properties and cultural resources

is not available, or is inadequate, your team will have to conduct its

own survey. (This inventory will prove to be an invaluable source of

information for both the hazard mitigation planning process and

other planning efforts.)

Although the prospect of conducting a survey of historic properties

and cultural resources may seem daunting, several resources

are available to assist you (e.g., you can enlist the aid of a variety

of individuals, from volunteers and students to professionally

qualiﬁed consultants). Moreover, several public sector professionals

are available to provide guidance to your team on appropriate

methodologies, funding sources, etc. Among the most important

resources to tap into is the Survey Coordinator from the SHPO/

THPO ofﬁce, as they can assist in determining the focus for such a

survey.

Additionally, your team should consult the Hazards Proﬁle

developed in Step 2 to ascertain the areas that have been identiﬁed

as having a signiﬁcant hazard threat. These areas should receive



Survey

Guidelines

Many local and State plan-

ning and preservation of

fices have published guidelines on

how to conduct a survey of historic

properties. Readily available guide

lines describe the qualiﬁcations and

experience of individuals who should

conduct the survey, what kind of pho

tographic documentation is required,

and what types of information are

needed to complete the survey forms.

One of your most useful sources of

information for conducting your survey

will be National Register Bulletin 24,

Guidelines for Local Surveys: A Basis

for Preservation Planning, accessible

at http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/publica-

tions/bulletins/nrb24.

Saving Time and

Resources

If you cannot complete

a comprehensive survey

of historic properties and

cultural resources located within the

planning area, consider what you can

do with the time available. For example,

by simply examining old maps, you

can identify areas where it is highly

likely historic properties will be found.

Additionally, taking digital photographs

of representative historic properties

and streetscapes may also be useful.

While these activities won’t yield a

comprehensive inventory, they will help

to make a good start.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

high priority for the initial survey effort, with less threatened areas

to be surveyed in subsequent project phases.

Note that a historic property and cultural resource survey may

be undertaken for one property or one set of resources, or for

several thousand. Also note that the process for identifying below

ground archeological properties will differ from an aboveground

architectural survey. Surveys undertaken for archeological sites

often include limited sampling and an examination of historic

land use patterns. Surveys for cultural resources, such as museum

collections, will also differ. While the effort and techniques are

variable, the goal for such surveys is always to document important

information about these resources.

Information received during the survey will be recorded on

inventory forms. These forms often vary in design from State

Rapid Visual

Screening for

Seismic Zones

A tool available to help you

quickly identify, inventory, and rank

buildings most at risk from a seismic

event is called rapid visual screening.

This methodology uses a form for a

“sidewalk survey” which the screener

ﬁlls out based on visual observation

of the building from the exterior, and if

possible, the interior. The form includes

space for documenting building iden

tiﬁcation information, including its use

and size, a photograph of the building,

sketches, and documentation of per-

tinent data related to seismic perfor-

mance, including the development of a

numeric seismic hazard score. To learn

more about this methodology, see

FEMA Publication 154, Rapid Visual

Screening of Buildings for Potential

Seismic Hazards: A Handbook.

Don’t Develop

Your Mitigation

Options Without a

Deﬁnitive Survey

Initial or windshield surveys can miss

historic buildings or potentially historic

buildings. A very important building

may be located within an otherwise

non-important block and lose out as

a result. Disasters may also yield ad-

ditional information/reveal previously

hidden materials that were not readily

visible before (buildings surveyed as

non-historic could lose a later exterior

cladding, revealing the original historic

facade, as happened in the California

Northridge earthquake in 1994.)

Be Comprehensive

Your plan should also account for historic properties and cultural

resources that are yet undiscovered. Certain types of historic

properties—particularly those not yet identiﬁed or conserved—are

also uniquely vulnerable to hazard events. During some hazard events, ar

cheological resources previously buried or submerged in water may become

exposed. For example, prehistoric sites along waterways may be unearthed

by erosion due to ﬂooding. Once-buried wells, privies, cellar holes, graves,

building foundations, and artifacts may become ﬂooded or exposed during

a seismic event. A shipwreck might become dislodged or damaged by wave

action. Archeological resources made of organic materials are especially

vulnerable if they are located adjacent to waterways prone to ﬂooding.

Eroded ﬁelds in Chilton County, Alabama, April 1937.

Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,

FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USF34-025394-D DLC

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Field Surveys in Milton, Pennsylvania

The community worked with consultants to survey the historic properties vulnerable to ﬂoods. The community

selected 100 properties to survey in its National Register-listed historic district, using a ﬁeld survey form devel-

oped for this project. The consultants later input the results of the survey into a database that was linked to a GIS

program for analysis.

to State. Regardless of whether your team is surveying a few

properties/resources or is surveying districts containing large

concentrations of resources, standard information should be

collected and recorded on the inventory forms.

To make sure you have not missed any important piece of

information in your survey, consult the various experts you

identiﬁed in Phase 1, Worksheet #1.

Consider a Variety

of Features

When surveying historic

properties, include sec

ondary buildings, landscape features

and setting, archeological sites, and

any art, artifact and antique collec

tions, etc.

Source: Looking to the Future:

Alternatives for Reducing

Flood-related Damages in

Historic Communities,

Milton,

Pennsylvania, June 2002

Milton

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

New Curatorial Facility

at Timucuan Ecological

& Historic Preserve

It is important to remember that some cultural

resources—such as works of art, books, or historic docu

ments—may be located in buildings that are not historic.

For example, four national park units in Northeast Florida

recently collaborated on construction of a new curatorial

building to house their museum collections. Timucuan Eco

logical and Historic Preserve and Fort Caroline National

Memorial, located in Jacksonville, are jointly managed, as

are Castillo de San Marcos National Monument and Fort

Matanzas National Monument, located an hour south in

St. Augustine.

A unique sharing of resources between the parks made

the facility possible. Although the Castillo had the money

to fund its own building, all of its parkland is at or near sea

level, between the Intercoastal Waterway and the Atlantic

Ocean. After Hurricane Floyd threatened Northeast Florida

in 1999, and park staff had to scramble to move the museum

collection to higher ground, Castillo superintendent Gordie

Wilson realized that “… we were putting people and collec

tions at risk on a regular basis.” He looked at other space in

St. Augustine, but the low elevation of the whole city, as well

as cost and lease agreements of rental space on a higher

ﬂoor, ruled out that option. Wilson approached Timucuan

Superintendent Barbara Goodman, knowing that Timucuan

Preserve contains land above the 100-year ﬂoodplain.

The new curatorial facility was designed in 2001, and con

structed in 2003. The result is a new 3,500-square-foot build

ing, funded through the Castillo 80% Fee Demo program

and located near Timucuan headquarters at approximately

40 feet above sea level.

The building contains two large rooms to store archives

and three dimensional objects separately, as well as a

much needed work area, a research room, and an ofﬁce.

The facility is climate- and humidity-controlled and has ﬁre

suppression and alarm systems.

Collections consist primarily of archeological objects system

atically excavated from the parks as well as a large archival

collection encompassing much of the history of Castillo de

San Marcos. Historical objects, such as books, household

goods, and architectural fragments from the Castillo are also

contained in the collection.

The collections for Timucuan and Fort Caroline were previ

ously stored in two cramped rooms with limited air condi-

tioning, minimal humidity control, and a security system in

only one area. The rooms had both exceeded their storage

capacity and contained no work space. The Castillo and

Fort Matanzas collections were stored in a stand-alone Bally

Building at sea level.

Had the new building not been completed by spring 2004,

park staff from both facilities would have been hurriedly mov

ing collections prior to the rash of hurricanes that hit Florida

later in the summer. Instead, the collections were already

safe and staff could spend time securing other facilities and

park resources. The four parks’ museum collections are now

stored according to NPS guidelines and these unique cultural

resources will no longer be deteriorating in poor environmen-

tal conditions and subject to potential tidal surges.

Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve building,

sited 40 feet above sea level, safely houses museum

collections of four national parks in Jacksonville,

Florida.

Photo courtesy of the National Park Service

Finally, remember that a survey without input from community

members is a survey that lacks legitimacy. Therefore, it is extremely

important to solicit the input of the public early in the survey

process.

Once the survey is completed, the next task is to determine which

of the identiﬁed properties/resources are most important to the

community, and to set preservation priorities accordingly.

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Sensitivity of Information

Some information on historic properties and cultural resources

may be so highly sensitive or private that it should not be included

in the publicly available hazard mitigation plan. Examples include

speciﬁc locations of culturally sensitive archeological sites

and the value of signiﬁcant archival collections, museum contents, or

artifacts. Moreover, you should treat any information you ﬁnd on the vulner-

ability of critical infrastructure and on security plans and systems as highly

sensitive. Sensitive information should not be included in the main body of

the mitigation plan, but rather in an addendum to which access is controlled.

For guidance on how to protect sensitive information contained within your

inventory, see Phase 4, Consideration 1: Sensitivity of Information.

Artistic and

Cultural

Collections

Consider artistic and cul-

tural collections that are valuable

assets to your community. Many

communities have created mitigation

plans that focus on the uniqueness of

artistic or cultural collections, and use

these to achieve economic develop-

ment and tourism goals. In some cases,

this may represent the entire commu-

nity, such as the Taos Pueblo in Taos,

New Mexico. In other cases, museums

that house such collections focus on

particular types of cultural resources,

such as the B&O Railroad Museum in

Baltimore, Maryland. Other institutions

may highlight signiﬁcant events in a

jurisdiction’s history, such as the John-

stown Flood Museum in Johnstown,

Pennsylvania, or may display a wide

range of historic records and artifacts

related to the formation and develop-

ment of a town or region. An excellent

example of this type of museum is the

Filson Historical Society in Louisville,

Kentucky, which is home to an exten-

sive collection of original manuscripts,

Daniel Boone’s famous “Kill a Barr”

carving, handmade quilts, Civil War ar

tifacts, photographs and prints, and the

most extensive collection of antebellum

portraiture in Kentucky.

Storage

Procedures

Developing appropriate

storage procedures for

moveable heritage (e.g., collections of

artifacts, special collections of a local

library, school, or college, and written

histories) will likely be an important

part of your plan. For example, you

may wish to relocate signiﬁcant items

stored in hazard-prone areas or build

ings to less hazard-prone areas.

Task B. Establish preservation priorities.

Once the inventory of historic properties and cultural resources

is complete, your team will be tasked with answering the following

question: “Which property/resource would the community miss

most if it were lost?”

In attempting to answer this question, your team will need to

determine the value the community places on these historic

properties and cultural resources. Whereas some communities

deﬁne themselves by skyscrapers, others may identify themselves

with a particular landscape, neighborhood, or even sculpture.

These assets are considered to be “preservation priorities.” Not

only do these icons provide invaluable information about the past,

but their loss would also provoke a public outcry. In addition to

providing a “sense of place,” they may also serve as potentially

valuable economic centers, commercial cornerstones, or important

pieces of infrastructure. Examples include the retention of

historic buildings along a river’s edge incorporated into a regional

“riverwalk” system, or archeological sites in a ﬂood-prone area

protected and integrated into a neighborhood environmental

education and discovery center. Thus, preservation of properties

and resources like these would be conducive to strengthening and

maintaining a sustainable community—a general goal of the hazard

mitigation plan.

In Task B, the goal for your team is to establish a working hierarchy

of preservation priorities for the community. Once established,

these preservation priorities (also referred to in this guide as a

preservation hierarchy) will provide a basis for important planning

decisions that will be made by the planning team in Phase 3 of

the hazard mitigation planning process—the part of the process

when mitigation actions are evaluated. By viewing this hierarchy

in conjunction with information on hazards, the community can

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

consider ways to reduce disaster-related damage with a view to also

preserving a community’s character. Given the potential abundance

of information on historic properties and cultural resources in a

community, setting preservation priorities is essential. Although

each resource in your inventory may have an interesting story

to tell, it is unlikely the community has the immediate ability to

provide each historic property and cultural resource an equal

level of attention in the hazard mitigation plan. To establish your

preservation hierarchy, you will ﬁrst determine the community

value of each historic property and cultural resource, then organize

your results by order of priority.

If you are having trouble creating a preservation hierarchy,

consider asking for advice for a creative solution from a local

planner, professional mediator, or a college class studying

community planning.

Introduction to Worksheet #4

You will use Worksheet #4: Determine Community Value for

Historic Property and Cultural Resource Assets

(see the example

on page 2-19 and blank worksheet in Appendix C) to determine

the level of community value. To arrive at this overall value, your

team must ﬁrst rank each asset in the categories listed in Columns

1–6 of Worksheet #4, which roughly correspond to the variables

listed above. Then, qualitatively add the results of Columns 1–6 and

ﬁll in Column 7. Record this total in Column 16 of Worksheet #3.

Although these two worksheets use rankings of high, medium, or

low, any range of numbers, colors, symbols, or other signiﬁers can

also be used to ascribe value.

1. Determine community value.

While all of a community’s historic properties and cultural

resources are important, some do a better job in visually reﬂecting

the community’s history, some are more important to the

local economy, and some are better able to convey important

information about the past. Moreover, the signiﬁcance of some

assets may not be immediately obvious to the outside “expert.”

What may strike an outsider as an unimpressive artifact or piece

of property may in fact be highly meaningful to the community.

Thus, a variety of variables (e.g., economic importance or public

sentiment) contributes to the overall value each historic property

and cultural resource in your inventory holds for the community.

Communicate

Regularly With

Your Planning

Team

Throughout the priority-setting pro-

cess, you must communicate regularly

with members of your hazard mitiga

tion planning team. If goals and ob-

jectives whose implementation could

threaten historic properties or cultural

resources are advanced, you will want

to voice your concerns and resolve

potential conﬂicts. An example of this

would be the selection of a structural

diversion mitigation alternative that

would result in the demolition of a

signiﬁcant number of buildings in a

designated historic district. Conversely,

if you ﬁnd that preservation potentially

complements other mitigation goals,

you will also want to make that known.

An example of this might be the acqui-

sition of land that achieves multiple

community goals, such as preserv-

ing open space, maintaining natural

features, and enhancing recreational

opportunities.

2-19

Version 1.0 May 2005

Determine Community Value for Historic Property

Worksheet #

4 and Cultural Resource Assets phase

Date: JANUARY 16, 2007 step 3

Name and Address of

Asset

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7

Historic

Designation

(National Register,

Local Landmark,

etc.)*

Geographic

Context of

Signiﬁcance

(National, Tribal/

State, Local)

Level of

Signiﬁcance

(High,

Medium, Low)

Public

Sentiment

(High,

Medium, Low)

Economic

Importance

(High,

Medium, Low)

Degree of

Integrity (High,

Medium, Low)

Total Level of

Community

Value (High,

Medium, Low)

HAZARDVILLE OPERA HOUSE

50 MAIN STREET

NR-LISTED STATE HIGH LOW MEDIUM LOW MEDIUM

CARRUTH HOUSE MUSEUM

22 PRIMROSE LANE

LOCAL LANDMARK LOCAL HIGH MEDIUM LOW HIGH MEDIUM

CARRUTH ARCHIVES

35 NORTH STREET

NOT LISTED STATE MEDIUM MEDIUM LOW MEDIUM LOW

LEHMAN’S GARDEN

CORNER OF MAIN AND NORTH

NR-LISTED NATIONAL MEDIUM HIGH HIGH MEDIUM HIGH

DOWNTOWN DISTRICT

(MAIN STREET)

NR-L

ISTED LOCAL MEDIUM HIGH HIGH MEDIUM MEDIUM

List the name and address of vulnerable historic properties and cultural assets. For each asset (row), ﬁll in Columns 1 to 6. Deﬁne High,

Medium, and Low for Columns 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 at the bottom of this worksheet (optional). Fill in Column 7 by qualitatively adding Columns

3 to 6. Enter the results of Column 7 in Column 16 of Worksheet #3.

*The designation level does not automatically correlate to the level of community value for ranking purposes.

2-20

STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

The structure pictured here is not what

immediately comes to mind when we

think of a historic property, yet it has

great community value. Constructed

circa 1850, this acorn-shaped gazebo

is located in downtown Silver Spring,

Maryland, and is all that remains of the

estate that gave this city its name.

Photo by Mark Edwards, URS Group, Inc., 2005

Another unusual structure valued by its community is the Transfer House in De-

catur, Illinois, built in 1895 to serve streetcar riders from the center of a downtown

intersection. After streetcar service ended in 1936, the Transfer House serviced

the bus lines. When the square was reduced in 1962 in the name of highway build-

ing, the Transfer House was moved to nearby Central Park. It languished there,

serving as a shopper’s resting place and, in season, as Santa’s headquarters,

until 1970. It was then renovated for use of the Downtown Decatur Council as

ofﬁces and public information center.

Top: Vintage postcard illustration of the Transfer House, Decatur,

Illinois.

Bottom: Renovated Transfer House in Central Park, Decatur, Illinois.

Source: H. George Friedman, Jr.; postcard collection

http://www-faculty.cs.uiuc.edu/~friedman/decatur/Decatur.htm

New Uses for Old Structures

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Due to the profusion of such variables, determining community

value is not a science; however, it is still possible to approach

the task in a structured way. Often local jurisdictions and States

have already developed information that will help you determine

community value of certain properties and resources. Local

governments, private non-proﬁt historic preservation organizations,

and SHPO ofﬁces have often developed plans that specify some of

this information. As part of this task, you should check with your

local historic preservation planner or SHPO for this information.

As you work with your community in setting preservation priorities,

you may identify additional variables that factor into what the

community considers valuable. By understanding how historic

properties and cultural resources are important in other areas of

A Great Source of Information –

State Historic Preservation Plans

As a condition of the receipt of Federal matching funds from NPS,

SHPO ofﬁces are required to develop what are known as State

historic preservation plans. These plans help guide each State’s approach

to the identiﬁcation, evaluation, and protection of historic properties. These

plans integrate historic preservation into broader planning systems at local,

regional, and State levels.

Each of these plans has a statewide focus, and usually describes key or

ganizations that are active in historic preservation in each State. Each plan

requires broad public involvement to ensure that the vision, issues, and goals

of each plan are truly representative of a broad cross-section of the State.

Preservation-relevant information on social, economic, political, legal, and

environmental conditions, and trends, is an important component of each

plan. Including information about these conditions is important, and helps

shape how each State develops its program priorities, and carries out its

historic preservation activities. Each plan also includes information on a wide

range of historic properties, and often identiﬁes speciﬁc property types that

will be a special focus of preservation activities. Such plans may also contain

information on cultural resources, if these resources are of concern to the

public and professionals across the State.

State historic preservation plans represent broad statements of public policy

regarding historic preservation. Your hazard mitigation planning team should

employ these State historic preservation plans as general information guides,

rather than technical encyclopedias that represent the sum of all knowledge

regarding historic properties in a given State. Used in conjunction with data

from State inventories, National Register listings, and historic context data,

they represent invaluable information sources that should be actively used

in shaping your hazard mitigation plan.

You should contact your SHPO ofﬁce directly to obtain the most up-to-date

version of this document, which is often available via the Internet. The NPS’

Historic Preservation Program Planning unit also provides readily accessible

and updated information on these plans, as well as contact information in

each State. Information current as of October 2004 is included at: http://www.

cr.nps.gov/hps/pad/stateplans/planlist.htm.

Unique

Preservation

Priorities

The values you use to es-

tablish your preservation priorities are

unique to the community. It is possible

that your community’s preservation

values may conﬂict with those of the

larger jurisdiction, such as the county

or State. For example, while your

community may focus its preservation

efforts on the oldest historic properties,

State preservation goals may highlight

the need to better protect and enhance

more modern examples of historic

properties, such as early 20th century

residential communities. In such cases,

you do not have to accept the priori-

ties of the larger jurisdiction. Rather,

you should document in your plan the

process you followed to determine your

preservation priorities. In this way, it

will be clear to the community, county,

State, or anyone else who reads the

plan why you are pursuing a given

course of action.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

your community’s life, you will be able to make a more informed

choice about how to best protect those historic properties and

cultural resources. The following list of variables acknowledges

FEMA’s desire to encourage communities not only to consider

the historic signiﬁcance and informational value of an asset, but

also to take into account other factors when making decisions

about historic properties and cultural resources, such as economic

potential. These variables are:

Public Sentiment;

Economic Importance;

Geographic Context of Signiﬁcance;

Level of Signiﬁcance; and

Integrity.

The next section will discuss each of these variables in depth.

Careful consideration of these variables in relation to the resources

contained in the inventory will help to determine the overall value

of the community’s historic property and cultural resource assets.

2. Determine overall community value.

By now, your planning team should have considered and evaluated

a range of factors to determine the overall community value of the

historic properties and cultural resources contained in its inventory.

These would include public sentiment, potential economic

importance, geographic context level, type of signiﬁcance, and

integrity. Taken together, all of these factors will be combined to

generate an overall community value for each asset. Perhaps your

community feels that it is appropriate to put more emphasis on one

category than another; if so, you can consider the use of weighted

multipliers.

Throughout your assessment of these factors, your planning team

has been recording on Worksheet #4 the degree to which each

factor contributes value to each asset within your inventory. To

determine the overall community value of a speciﬁc asset, combine

all the ranks assigned to that asset across all the factors noted in

Columns 1–6 of Worksheet #4. This composite rank is your overall

community value for that asset. You should record the value ﬁrst in

Column 7 of Worksheet #4 and then in Column 16 of Worksheet #3.

With the establishment of your preservation hierarchy, you are

now ready to revisit the hazards you identiﬁed back in Step 1 and

estimate the losses to the resources prioritized in your preservation

hierarchy in Step 4.



Community

Value of Cultural

Resources

In developing your preser-

vation priorities or hierarchy, it may not

be easy to determine the community

value of cultural resources, such as

archival collections and other move

able objects. There are, however, some

basic questions you can answer to help

you understand how some cultural

resources may hold a greater value

than others. For example, does the

resource contain information relating

to the surrounding community? Is it

highly usable?

Usability of a cultural resource is one

key characteristic to consider. Is the

resource organized or curated in such

a way that its important information can

be accessed by the public? If your cul

tural resource is an archival collection,

does it have a ﬁnding guide?

In addition, you may wish to evaluate

how unique your cultural resource is.

For example, is the information con

tained in a collection unique or is it

duplicated in another collection stored

at another institution or site?

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Variables for Developing Community Value

Disasters and Heritage Tourism

The rain from Tropical Storm Alberto fell for 11

days. In one day alone, the town of Americus,

Georgia, was inundated by 21 inches of rain-

fall. The commercial district of the town of Montezuma,

Georgia, comprising 60 historic buildings, found itself

covered by 14 feet of water. By the time the 500-year ﬂood

event ended, President Clinton had declared 78 counties

in the State eligible for Federal disaster assistance.

Federal ofﬁcials estimated damage at over $1 billion.

Agricultural losses alone exceeded $100 million. Approxi

mately 50,000 people ﬂed their homes. The ﬂoods dam-

aged more than 18,000 buildings, and destroyed more

than 250 historic buildings. Thirty-three people perished.

These numbers alone, however, do not fully convey the

Public Sentiment

Your assessment of public sentiment should be

based on actual input from the public, rather

than just your intuition. Public input will help

you identify those resources held in high regard

by the community (some of which may not

strike an outsider as particularly impressive), as

well as those which create less public sentiment,

yet are still signiﬁcant in their own right. You

may have recorded the level of public sentiment

towards your community’s historic properties

and cultural resource as you researched in

Phase 1 what has been done to date to protect

these assets, and later as you undertook your

inventory in Step 3 of Phase 2. If your team has

determined the level of public sentiment for

an asset in your inventory, that level should be

entered into Column 4 of Worksheet #4.

If your team does not know how the community

feels about certain assets, there are a variety of

methods that can be used to gather community

input. Three effective methods are public

meetings, questionnaires, and visual deﬁnition

surveys. At public meetings, interested

devastating impact of Tropical Storm Alberto upon the

State of Georgia and its economic infrastructure.

Although one local newspaper reported that some con

sidered Montezuma a ghost town that couldn’t come

back…it did come back. A combination of Federal, State,

and private non-proﬁt funding was used to rebuild the

town, which learned that historic preservation can be the

foundation of economic and physical growth. The effort, in

turn, brought a new industry—heritage tourism—to Mon-

tezuma, generated new life to the downtown area, and

helped bring citizens together in a common cause. But if

the communities wrecked by Tropical Storm Alberto had

taken action well before the ﬂood, they might have been

able to reduce damages and losses from the ﬂood.

individuals have an opportunity to express

their thoughts and reach consensus. In the

questionnaire, respondents may be requested to

list signiﬁcant structures known to them. In the

visual deﬁnition survey, community members

are asked to place adhesive stickers on a large

poster board of their community to highlight

areas they believe to be of high signiﬁcance.

Once you obtain the public’s input, enter your

results in Column 4 of Worksheet #4.

Economic Importance

Historic properties and cultural resources do

considerably more than provide a community

with a unique sense of place. They can also

provide an important attraction for potential

residents and tourists. Examples include historic

buildings used as museums and educational

centers, as well as larger geographic areas

such as Pike’s Place Market Historic District, a

healthy, bustling community of merchants and

residents in Seattle, Washington. Furthermore,

neglected historic properties may be eligible

for tax credits and other incentives for

proper rehabilitation. Most importantly, these

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

historic properties and cultural resources

are nonrenewable and cannot be replaced

or replicated. While potential economic

importance is not the only reason a historic

property should be prioritized, it is an

important consideration in the decision-making

process. Often local decision-makes are unaware

of the economic potential of these properties.

Showing decision-makers how these properties

can be economic assets will help in ensuring

that they are considered for preservation and

enhancement as part of the hazard mitigation

planning process.

Examining local and regional planning data

may give you an idea of the potential economic

importance of the historic properties and

cultural resources in your inventory. Are some

of your properties located in a zone targeted

for redevelopment and future investment?

Are they already an important anchor of the

local economy? Answers to these questions will

help you understand how historic properties

and cultural resources can contribute to a

community’s economic future.

designated as such under local historic

preservation ordinances, State landmarks,

or the National Register. It is likely, though,

that many historic properties have not yet

been evaluated. These properties should not

automatically be discounted. It is important,

therefore, to recognize past efforts and indicate

designation or lack thereof of each asset in the

inventory in Column 1 of Worksheet #4.

Evaluating Signiﬁcance

Geographic Context of Signiﬁcance (National,

Tribal/State, Local).

One way of determining

signiﬁcance is to evaluate properties or

resources using a prescribed set of criteria.

One of the best available sets is the Criteria for

Evaluation developed by NPS, which is used to

determine a historic property’s eligibility for

listing in the National Register. The basis for a

historic property’s signiﬁcance rests on one or

more of the following four factors (additional

information is provided in Appendix A –

Glossary):

Events important to broad patterns of our

history;

Lives of persons important in our past;

Architectural and engineering design and

construction; and

Information important in prehistory or

history.

Historic contexts can help your team evaluate

the signiﬁcance of properties contained in your

inventory. Speciﬁcally, a historic context is used

by historians to compare a speciﬁc property type

with other similar historic properties. Historic

contexts that have been developed over the

past two decades are usually on ﬁle in SHPO

and THPO ofﬁces, and in some cases in local

historic preservation agencies.



Economic Importance of

Historic Properties and

Cultural Resources

Thought should be given to the role these

resources play in creating a diversity of housing op

tions (e.g., converting warehouses into apartment

lofts) and generating additional beneﬁts to the com

munity (e.g., serving as a revitalization engine).

Once the economic importance of assets in

the inventory has been determined, it should

be entered into Column 5 of Worksheet #4.

Historic Designation

Historic properties and cultural resources

in a community may already have been

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As your team creates a list of preservation

priorities, the process of establishing

signiﬁcance must be handled with care and

diligence. Ultimately, there is no easy litmus test

for deﬁning signiﬁcance; some of the challenges

your team may face are described in the sidebar

to the right. The careful use of a rigorous

evaluation process and established criteria

will help achieve community consensus in this

important portion of the inventory process.

Once the geographic context of signiﬁcance of

historic properties and cultural resources has

been determined, the signiﬁcance level should

be entered into Column 2 of Worksheet #4 - the

geographic context level.

Historic Contexts

Documents that specify certain themes,

geographic areas, and chronological peri

ods that provide perspective to evaluate a

historic property’s signiﬁcance. Historic contexts have

been developed on a variety of geographic levels or

scales. The geographic scale selected may relate to

a pattern of human development, a political subdivi-

sion, or a cultural area. For example, a local historic

context represents an aspect of the history of a town,

city, county, cultural area, or region. A State historic

context allows evaluation of a historic property when

it represents an aspect of the history of the State as a

whole. A national context would be employed when a

historic property represents the history of the United

States and its territories as a whole. Regardless of the

scale, the historic context establishes the framework

through which decisions about the signiﬁcance of

related historic properties can be made.

NPS has made extensive information on historic

contexts available to the public, including informa

tion on approximately one-third of the 77,000 historic

places listed in the National Register. As components

of Multiple Property Submissions (MPS), information

on groups of properties is available via the Internet.

For more information, go to http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/

research/contexts.htm.

Deﬁning Signiﬁcance

Not all historic properties and cultural

resources in your inventory will be equally

signiﬁcant or exceptional, however much

they may appear to be. Properties with more sig

niﬁcance than others might be those that are easily

identiﬁable with historic trends, or that serve as ex

ceptional examples of an architectural form or style.

Among this subset of resources, you must still make

comparisons. For example, although buildings asso

ciated with important historical ﬁgures may already

have been identiﬁed and evaluated, their levels of

signiﬁcance may not have been compared.

Signiﬁcant buildings might not always be large and

impressive, but may actually be quite modest, such

as a row of workers’ houses with simple front porches,

closely set to the street. Although humble-looking,

they may contain design elements that evoke a

bygone era. Indeed, certain features may deﬁne a

building’s character and link it with its historical past

or architectural style—its ornate exterior construction

materials, its interior room organization, or its place

ment within a working agricultural landscape. On the

other hand, other features of the same building may

contribute little to an understanding of the building’s

history or overall signiﬁcance.

Likewise, cultural resources with little value on the

open market may be priceless to your commu

nity—for example, diaries or artwork produced by

early residents, or an original ﬁrst edition of the local

newspaper from its inception 150 years ago. Other

cultural resources may be valuable for their sheer

rarity—an irreplaceable sculpture collection, a set of

rare books, or antiques that once belonged to some

renowned person.

The process of deﬁning signiﬁcance will take time and

careful analysis. For example, although an important

labor leader was born and raised in a certain house in

your community, it may be the small apartment where

he formed his labor union that is the more signiﬁcant

site. In another example, although a community has

many streets containing examples of post-World War II

suburban housing, it may be the street with the largest

intact collection of the same type of house, with the

same type of landscape, built by the same developer,

which has the greater level of signiﬁcance. Thus, the

street nicknamed “Ranch House Heaven” would merit

greater recognition in the evaluation process due to its

abundance of ranch houses. Because it so thoroughly

typiﬁes a postwar ranch-house streetscape, it serves

as an important example of postwar housing. In sum

mary, training a critical eye on the evaluation process

will ensure success in your efforts.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Level of Signiﬁcance (High, Medium, Low).

Whereas the geographic context of signiﬁcance

helps you understand where a property or

resource is important, the level of signiﬁcance

helps you understand just how important that

property or resource is. In other words, is the

resource simply a representative example of a

particular property type or historic trend, or is it

an important and exceptional example?

When determining community value, it is

useful to look at the level of signiﬁcance of

a historic property or cultural resource. The

level of signiﬁcance will provide you with some

important information about the character

and nature of the resource, which may prove

useful as your team proceeds to deﬁne overall

community value. For the purposes of this

guide, the level of signiﬁcance is deﬁned in

the following manner: High = Exceptional

property or resource important to maintaining

the unique character of the community;

Medium = Important representative example

which contains some unique details; and Low =

Important, but other representative examples

exist in the community. Fill in the level of

signiﬁcance in Column 3 of Worksheet #4.

Once you have determined the designation

(or lack thereof) and level of signiﬁcance,

you may wish to consider combining the two

variables. For example, you might categorize

historic properties as “National Register Listed-

Local Signiﬁcance” or “Unevaluated-Regional

Signiﬁcance.”

Closely tied to level of signiﬁcance is the

integrity of a historic resource, discussed in the

following section.

Integrity

After assessing the geographic context and level

of signiﬁcance of the historic properties and

cultural resources in the inventory, the next step

is to assess the integrity of those assets. Simply

put, the integrity of a historic property is how

well it conveys its signiﬁcance. Remember that

integrity focuses on the features of a historic

property, and is not the same as condition,

which pertains to appearance. The ability

of a historic building to “tell its history”—to

demonstrate historic themes and trends in a

certain place and time period—heavily depends

on its integrity.

The Seven Aspects

of Integrity

The National Register uses seven aspects

of integrity to assess the eligibility of a

historic property. Even if you are not assessing Na

tional Register eligibility, an understanding of these

seven aspects of integrity will help guide you through

determining the overall integrity of a historic prop

erty. These seven aspects of integrity are location,

association, setting, materials, design, feeling, and

workmanship. More information on assessing integrity

is available from NPS in Chapter Seven of its Bulletin

#15: How to Apply the Criteria for National Register

Evaluation, found online at http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/

publications/bulletins/nrb15/nrb15_7.htm.

Assessing Your

Conservation Needs

Professional associations such as the

American Institute for the Conservation of

Artistic and Historic Works (AIC) maintain an exten

sive guide of qualiﬁed conservators experienced in a

range of specialties, including books and paper, pho-

tographic materials, objects, paintings, architecture,

wooden artifacts, and textiles. These conservators

may be able to assist you in assessing the current

conservation needs of your cultural resources, and

may also be able to help you develop a site-speciﬁc

disaster emergency plan for cultural resources. This

free guide is available directly through AIC as well

as on its Web site, located at http://aic.stanford.

edu/public/select.html.

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Renovation or Modiﬁcation

May Not Diminish a

Building’s Integrity

Someday, a recent remodeling or alteration might itself

be considered historic. Therefore, signiﬁcant architectural

features may not always date from the time of original

construction. For example, the relatively recent addition,

in 1920, of wood clapboard siding on a remodeled log

cabin dating back to 1840 does not necessarily diminish

the building’s physical integrity. The siding in itself may

be a historic design element and may not diminish the

integrity of the property as a whole. For more informa

tion on this topic, see NPS Technical Brief #35, Under-

standing Old Buildings: The Process of Architectural

Investigation by Travis McDonald, at http://www.cr.nps.

gov/hps/tps/briefs/brief35.htm.

Blythewood has three distinct sections: the 1820s

main block (center), 1880s shed-roofed addition

(left), and 1920s Colonial Revival addition

(right). Prince Georges County, Maryland.

Photo by Craig Tuminaro, URS Group, Inc., 2005

Summarizing

Survey Results

Communities summarize the results of

historic property integrity evaluations in

a variety of ways. For example, the City of Chicago

recently completed an ambitious project—a citywide

survey of historic properties. More than 17,000 build

ings or structures were identiﬁed as having at least

a minimal level of signiﬁcance. In order to better un

derstand the signiﬁcance and integrity of all of these

properties, the City developed a color-coding system

in which red properties were signiﬁcant on a City,

State, or national level, and orange properties were

signiﬁcant on a community or neighborhood level.

As it turned out, only 300 of the 17,000 properties

were categorized as “red,” with 9,600 categorized as

“orange.” The system also assigned categories of

green, yellow-green, and yellow to represent different

degrees to which buildings had undergone alterations.

Finally, “blue” properties were those constructed too

recently to be considered for evaluation for signiﬁ

cance, but whose signiﬁcance may be reevaluated

as time passes.

When evaluating integrity, it is important to

document and evaluate all contributing historic

design features. The removal or replacement

of important design elements, such as windows

and siding, may prevent a historic property from

depicting some of its historic and architectural

themes.

This process may also afford your team with an

opportunity to evaluate the current condition

of cultural resources, especially in regard to

their ability to withstand hazard-related damage.

While some museums and other repositories

may have already begun this process, there is a

wealth of information available to assist in this

effort.

Once you have evaluated the integrity of each

historic resource in your inventory, you should

indicate the degree of integrity in Column 6 of

Worksheet #4.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

This is the end of Step 3 of Phase 2. Following are questions you

should ask yourself to determine if you have adequately addressed

preparing your inventory and preservation hierarchy. These are

followed by a Review Test you should use as a learning aid to

help you check your understanding of key terms and concepts in

inventorying assets.

Evaluate Your Community

Is GIS being used for the hazard mitigation plan? Does a GIS

database already exist for historic properties and cultural

resources?

If a GIS inventory does not exist, do you have an inventory

in another format? If so, is it complete and up to date? Who

manages and updates the inventory?

Have you been able to show on a map—using GIS or by

hand—which resources lie in areas affected by more than one

hazard?

Were you able to evaluate the vulnerabilities to different

hazards of the historic properties and cultural resources in

your inventory? If not, where can you ﬁnd assistance to assess

vulnerabilities?

Did your preservation priorities conﬂict with other

community plans and policies? If so, have you worked out

these conﬂicts?

Have you clearly justiﬁed your preservation priorities and

created a record of your evaluations?

Review Test (Select one answer for each question.)

Where can you check to make sure you have all the existing

data you need on historic properties and cultural resources in

your community?

Your local planner.

SHPO/THPO ofﬁce.

Local and State non-proﬁt historical and cultural

organizations.

All of the above.



Not All Historic

Properties and

Cultural Resources

are Created Equal

You should resist the temptation to

consider every historic property and

cultural resource as equally impor

tant in your preservation hierarchy.

Remember that you are creating a

preservation hierarchy that will help

planners prioritize mitigation actions

in the hazard mitigation planning pro-

cess. As difﬁcult as it may be to con-

sider, some properties and resources

in the hierarchy will need to be less

of a priority than others. In the case

where the area is small, intact, original

enough, or of high integrity, then every

historic property and cultural resource

may rate as equally important.

Mapping Historic

Properties

and Cultural

Resources

If you have a number of historic proper-

ties and cultural resources, your team

may wish to create a map to display

these. This map can be created by

color-coding the community value as

signed to each asset on a base map

or using a GIS (see GIS discussion on

page 2-8). A glance at the completed

map will reveal a bell-curve distribu-

tion of community value for resources:

a few resources of either high or low

value, and several of average (me

dium) value. Likewise, you will ﬁnd this

same bell-curve distribution among the

individual factors that comprise com

munity value (e.g., a few resources of

very high or low integrity, and many of

average integrity).

Ultimately, this mapped preservation

hierarchy will serve as an invaluable

aid to your planning team as it at

tempts to prioritize mitigation options

during the mitigation planning process.

For example, highly signiﬁcant areas,

where preservation is a top priority,

may be the focus of intensive mitigation

efforts, whereas less signiﬁcant areas

may not require such concentration

of effort.

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assess risks

A GIS is useful for:

Providing rules of order for contentious public meetings.

Producing maps that display many types of data that are

tied to a particular location.

Telling you where you can ﬁnd more information on

historic properties and cultural resources.

None of the above.

If a GIS is not available, you should:

Give up.

Compile your data on a computerized spreadsheet based

on Worksheet #3.

Plot the location of historic properties and cultural

resources by hand on a USGS map or a ﬂood map of your

community.

Undertake the actions described in b and c.

The level of community value for ranking purposes is based

on:

An exact mathematical formula.

The geographic context of signiﬁcance only.

The best judgment that the team makes after evaluating an

array of variables that contribute to community value.

None of the above.

A property can be considered historic and worthy of

consideration in the hazard mitigation plan only if it is listed

in the National Register, a State landmarks list, or a local

landmarks list.

True.

False.

Which of the following, in your opinion, should rank ﬁrst

in the preservation hierarchy? Second? Third? State your

reasons.

A block of bungalows, some of which have been greatly

altered, that were designed by a prominent local architect

and date back to the 1920s.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

A privately owned house that is listed as a local landmark

and that serves as an outstanding example of the Queen

Anne style.

The library, which was constructed in 1890, is listed in the

National Register, contains diaries and photographs of the

community’s founders, and is an excellent example of the

Neoclassical architectural style.

None of the above.

(Answers in Appendix D – Answers to Review Tests.)

Step 4. Estimate Losses

Step 4 will address the question “Which historic properties and

cultural resources would result in the most ﬁnancial damage to

the community in the event they were damaged or destroyed?” In

this step, your team will bring together the information gathered

in Steps 1–3 to estimate the potential losses to the community’s

historic properties and cultural resources due to hazard events.

To do this, your team will need to assess the level of damage as

a percentage of structural and content replacement value, and

functional and displacement value. See Worksheet #5: Estimate

Total Losses for Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

(see

the example on page 2-31 and blank worksheet in Appendix C) for

this step.

Before you begin to estimate losses, ﬁrst check to see if these

calculations have not already been made as part of the hazard

mitigation planning effort. If so, you can simply use these estimates,

making appropriate adjustments for historic values.

Additionally, you are strongly advised to review FEMA 386-2 before

delving into Step 4 of Phase 2. The loss estimation tables provided

in Step 4 of FEMA 386-2 should be used to complete Task A. These

tables have been adapted from various sources, including Means

Square Foot Cost publication, Hazards U.S. (HAZUS), and FEMA’s

Beneﬁt-Cost Analysis module. For more a detailed analysis, refer to

the source(s) listed for each table.

In using these tables, you will ﬁnd that loss estimation tables have

been developed for ﬂoods, earthquakes, and coastal storms, but

not for tornadoes, landslides, tsunamis, and wildﬁres. In these

cases, you can base your loss estimations either on the full value of

historic properties and cultural resources located within a given

hazard area or on past community experience with those types of

Hazards US

(HAZUS)

FEMA’s Mitigation Division

recently released HAZUS-

MH MR1 (HAZUS-Multi-Hazard Ver

sion 1.1), an updated and revised

version of HAZUS-MH, a powerful

risk assessment software program for

analyzing potential losses from ﬂoods,

hurricane, winds, and earthquakes.

Included with the new release are an

updated version of the Building Inven-

tory Tool (BIT), the Inventory Collection

Survey Tool (InCAST), and the Flood

Information Tool (FIT). These three

data input tools have been developed

to support data collection. InCAST

helps users collect and manage local

building data for more reﬁned analyses

than are possible with the national

level data sets that come with HAZUS.

InCAST was released in 2002 with

expanded capabilities for multi-haz

ard data collection. BIT allows users

to import building data and is most

useful when handling large datasets

(over 100,000 records), such as tax

assessor records. FIT helps users

manipulate ﬂood data into the format

required by the HAZUS ﬂood model.

Federal, Tribal, State, and local govern

ment agencies and the private sector

can order HAZUS-MH free-of-charge

from the FEMA Distribution Center.

Please visit the FEMA Web site for

more information: http://www.fema.

gov/hazus/.

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Estimate Total Losses for Historic

Worksheet #

5 Properties and Cultural Resources phase

Hazard: FLOOD Date: JANUARY 19, 2007 step 4

Make a copy of this worksheet for each hazard of concern. Note the date and the hazard at the top of the worksheet. List

each historic property or cultural resource asset. For each asset (row) calculate the structure, contents, function, and

displacement losses. Enter each loss and total loss on Worksheet #3, as indicated.

Name/

Description of

Structure

Structure Loss

Structure

Replacement

Value ($) X

Percent

Damage

(%) =

Loss to

Structure

(Worksheet 3,

Column 11)

HAZARDVILLE OPERA HOUSE

$1,000,000

$300,000

CARRUTH ARCHIVES $200,000

$40,000

DOWNTOWN DISTRICT $3,000,000

$900,000

LEHMAN GARDENS N/A

N/A

X =

Total Loss to Structures

$1,240,000

Name/

Description of

Structure

Loss of Function Cost

Average

Daily

Operating

Budget

($) X

Functional

Downtime

(# of days)

Total

Function

Loss ($)

(Worksheet

3, Column

13)

HAZARDVILLE OPERA

OUSE

$1,000

$30,000

CARRUTH ARCHIVES $300

$6,600

DOWNTOWN DISTRICT $5,000

$150,000

LEHMAN GARDENS N/A

N/A

X =

Total Loss of Function

$186,600

Contents Loss

Replacement

Value of Contents

(Professionally

Appraised for

Historic Contents) X

Percent

Damage

(%) =

Loss of

Contents ($)

(Worksheet 3,

Column 12)

$500,000

$150,000

$250,000

$50,000

$750,000

$225,000

$200,000

$20,000

X =

Total Loss of Contents

$445,000

Displacement Cost

Displace-

ment

Cost per

Day

($) X

Displace-

ment

Time =

Total

Displacement

Cost ($)

(Worksheet 3,

Column 14)

$1,000

190

$190,000

$100

126

$12,600

$7,500

190

$1,425,000

N/A

X =

Total

Displacement Cost

$1,627,600

Structure Loss

Content Loss

Function Loss

Displacement

Cost

(Worksheet 3,

Column 15)

$670,000

$109,200

$2,700,000

$20,000

$3,499,200

Total Loss

for Hazard

Event

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

hazards. For example, if your community is vulnerable to wildﬁres,

your estimate of loss to a wildﬁre would be based on the number

of assets, such as infrastructure, timber, and other community

resources, that were destroyed in past wildﬁre events. For further

explanation on how to use these tables, see FEMA 386-2 page 4-3.

Task A. Determine the extent of damages.

It is important to remember that potential losses to a historic

property or cultural resource go beyond the immediate dollar value

of materials and labor needed for repair. Your total estimate of the

costs of expected losses will take into account several different types

of losses, including the following:

Losses to Historic Properties or Cultural Resources (Column

11 of Worksheet #3);

Losses to the Contents of the Historic Properties (Column 12

of Worksheet #3);

Losses to the Use and Function of Historic Properties or

Cultural Resources (Columns 13 of Worksheet #3); and

Losses due to Displacement Costs (Column 14 of

Worksheet #3).

In Task A, you will calculate the expected losses to the structure

and content, along with the functional loss and displacement cost.

In Task B you will add these losses together to obtain total loss

estimates for each asset and for the hazard as a whole.

Worksheet #5 will help guide you through the four types of

calculations required to estimate losses to structures, contents,

functional downtime, and displacement. You will make these

calculations for each hazard identiﬁed in Step 1 of this risk

assessment.

1. Estimate losses to structure.

Before you can calculate the estimated percent damage to a

structure, you must ﬁrst determine the replacement value of the

resource. As discussed below, arriving at the replacement value

of historic properties and cultural resources requires careful

consideration of historic design features.

While several methods exist for determining a fair market value

for historic properties, especially buildings, no established method

is available for determining a replacement value for historic



Loss Estimation

Tables

A loss estimation table

projects the losses likely

to be sustained due to a speciﬁc type

of hazard event (e.g., ﬂoods) based

on observed past damages. Estimated

losses are provided for different magni-

tudes of the hazard and are expressed

as a percentage of replacement cost.

Using Loss

Estimation Tables

Currently, no standard-

ized loss estimation table

or damage curve exists for historic

properties and cultural resources.

Therefore, the loss estimation tables

provided in FEMA 386-2 should only

be used as a broad planning tool for

estimating losses to historic properties

and cultural resources. You may wish

to develop alternative tools for loss

estimation, or highlight historic prop-

erties slated for detailed loss analysis

in the future. Moreover, loss estima

tion tables and standardized damage

curves represent the cumulative data

on average loss gathered from many

thousands of hazard-prone buildings.

Many of these buildings may not be

representative of the historic buildings

in your community. For example, they

may be of more recent construction

or of a different construction method.

Although loss estimation tables and

standardized damage curves are an

imperfect tool, they may still be an

important aid in the hazard mitigation

decision-making process.

Estimating

Seismic Rehab

Costs

FEMA has two publications

to aid your team in estimating seismic

rehabilitation costs. FEMA 156, Typical

Costs for Seismic Rehabilitation of Ex

isting Buildings Volume 1 – Summary,

and FEMA 157, Typical Costs for Seis

mic Rehabilitation of Buildings Volume

2 – Supporting Documentation. Both

publications can be ordered through

the FEMA Publications Warehouse by

calling 1-800-480-2520.

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properties. It is a difﬁcult task to place a dollar value on the

craftsmanship exhibited by many historic properties, particularly

when the types of materials and skilled labor that went into such

work are no longer readily available. It is nearly impossible to

provide an accurate valuation when craftsmanship is truly unique.

Assigning a replacement value to certain cultural resources, such

as works of art, original photographs, or documents may be even

more difﬁcult.

Despite this challenge, deﬁning a reasonable replacement cost

allows historic properties and cultural resources to more effectively

be integrated into the hazard mitigation planning process.

Replacement values for historic properties and cultural resources

can vary signiﬁcantly. For example, methods for treating historic

properties and cultural resources following a disaster can deviate

signiﬁcantly, ranging from standard repair and rehabilitation to a

more careful (and often more expensive) level of museum-quality

conservation or restoration. Moreover, the costs of materials

required for rehabilitation often vary widely from region to region.

As you develop an idea of the replacement value of your historic

properties and cultural resources, it is important to remember that

these resources are non-renewable resources—they cannot truly be

replaced by duplicates or facsimiles.

One way to determine replacement values for what are essentially

irreplaceable resources is to combine standard cost estimating

techniques used for new construction with approximate costs of

post-disaster rehabilitation based on the Secretary of the Interior’s

Standards for Rehabilitation of Historic Structures.

These guidelines, as

well as other guidelines from NPS, will also help in determining

replacement values for historic properties. Of great assistance will

be the documentary photographs and ﬁeld notes you took during

your survey of the property in Step 3. For appraising cultural

resources, it may be necessary to work with a professional appraiser

or experienced conservator. Reviewing insurance policies may

also help you to estimate their replacement value. More detailed

methods for replacement valuation are described in the section

that follows.

Replacement

Value

A replacement value repre-

sents the approximate cost

of the contemporary reconstruction of

an existing building, structure, or cul

tural resource. The replacement value

is used in determining the cost-effec

tiveness of various hazard mitigation

alternatives.

Involvement of

Property Owner

in Determining

Replacement

Value

Owners may also be a valuable source

of information on the replacement

value of historic properties and their

contents. Some institutions or land

owners, however, may be hesitant to

reveal the actual value of their proper

ties. These owners should be assured

that they can provide planners with the

dollar values they require for planning

purposes, but that the amount will be

classiﬁed as sensitive and not included

in the plan. Additionally, if it makes the

owners more comfortable, they can

cite a value range—between $100,000

and $120,000, for example—instead

of a precise value, or state the value

of the contents as a percentage of the

structure’s value.

Some institutions may not know the

value of their artifacts or parts of their

collections. In these cases, they can

report the percentage of their holdings

that are considered unique or irre

placeable. This ﬁgure can still be useful

in prioritizing mitigation actions.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Recommended Methods for Replacement

Valuation of Historic Properties

How do I determine a

replacement value of

a historic property?

Using a common construction costing

guide, you should:

Determine the appropriate style category to which

the property belongs by examining the pictures

provided in the guide. Look for similar design fea

tures, as well as level of ornament and detail.

Establish a basic square-foot cost based on the

basic structural system, using extra costs for

other structural features such as chimneys and

porches. These extra costs classiﬁcations are

listed in the guide.

Use the local construction cost multipliers provided

in the guide to ﬁnd the construction cost multiplier

appropriate for your community; use this ﬁgure to

calculate your ﬁnal cost.

For unique property features, consider using ad

ditional multipliers speciﬁc to your community or

site-speciﬁc cost exceptions.



You may notice that some of the new buildings

in your community resemble certain historic

structures. This is not surprising, since certain

popular architectural styles have often been

revived throughout history. Because many

contemporary buildings or structures listed

in the RS Means guide and other similar

construction costing guides are alike in basic

external appearance to historic buildings and

structures, it is relatively easy to place many

historic properties into different categories of

construction costs.

However, due to the high level of architectural

detail that is often present in historic properties,

many historic buildings and structures should

be placed into a higher Means or construction

guide category indicating a higher level of

detail or construction quality. In addition, you

should adjust your estimate to account for

local construction costs and any unique or site-

speciﬁc characteristics. For example, certain

exceptions and allowances should be made

for unique decorative features, such as curved

glass windows, turrets, or detailed cornices. A

qualiﬁed preservation architect, a contractor

experienced in historic building rehabilitation,

or other appropriate design or construction

professionals will be able to assist you in the

development of site-speciﬁc or unique cost

exceptions and allowances.

Perhaps your community has some highly

unusual, one-of-a-kind historic properties and

cultural resources for which there is no easy

comparison or cost category. These might

include places and structures as diverse as a

sod house, a traditional cultural landscape

feature, or a unique example of commercial

roadside sculpture. For these truly unique

assets, you should make a list of their most

unusual or unique aspects. For example, a

property may serve as the venue for an annual

community cultural gathering, or be an

exceptional example of architecture that draws

In estimating losses to a building, you must

ﬁrst determine the replacement value of a

historic property. One recommended method

for determining the replacement value of

historic properties is to organize information

in a standard valuation format using a common

construction costing guide, such as the one

published by RS Means. Such costing guides

place buildings and structures into several

different quality-based categories of per-square-

foot construction costs, based on such factors as

height and level of detail and craftsmanship.

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assess risks

tourists regionally or nationally. Once you have

compiled your list of unusual features, examine

it for those items which have a well-deﬁned

dollar value. This may include annual costs

associated with the continual upkeep of unique

design features. When standard cost estimating

techniques are inadequate for determining a

replacement value for a highly unusual historic

property, you can explore alternative methods

of replacement valuation. If you do decide to

pursue other methods, remember to keep a

written paper record justifying your decisions.

If your community is undertaking a large-scale

hazard mitigation plan encompassing hundreds

or even thousands of historic properties, it may

lack the time, money, or other resources needed

to develop detailed individualized replacement

costs, especially those requiring multiple

cost exceptions for historic design features.

Although these more detailed estimates provide

a greater degree of accuracy, your community

can instead develop a specialized multiplier

for each historic property that you add to

the standard estimated replacement value

for similar standard, modern construction to

account for locally unique cost considerations.

This multiplier should be based on the average

costs of potential post-disaster rehabilitation of

historic design features found in the Secretary

of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation.

Such

a multiplier will be useful if many of your

community’s historic properties have similar or

typical historic features.

To formulate this community-speciﬁc multiplier,

you may want to investigate a variety of local or

regional sources, such as the following:

Insurance claims and post-disaster reports

for historic properties and cultural

resources in your community, or for

similar properties facing similar hazards in

other communities in your region.

Local, State, or Federal ﬁnancial incentive

programs, that encourage appropriate

rehabilitation of historic properties (e.g.,

tax credits for rehabilitation). Do the

ﬁgures used by these programs accurately

reﬂect the potential costs for post-disaster

rehabilitation? Could these ﬁgures be used

in support of a multiplier for your project?

Your SHPO/THPO, as well as local

professionals experienced with historic

buildings, may be able to tell you the

typical features and costs associated with

rehabilitating local historic properties.

The needs of your community will determine

whether you choose to establish a multiplier

or pursue a more detailed analysis. Should you

choose the multiplier, community needs will

also determine the means by which you gather

cost data to develop the multiplier.



Remember that you probably will not ﬁnd a perfect match for every

historic property in your preservation hierarchy. This means that

replacement value data generated using either a costing guide or

a multiplier will be approximate, and not exact. The replacement

cost you assign to an essentially irreplaceable resource is, at best,

imperfect. If you encounter concerns about replacement valuation,

you can remind those concerned that many other factors about a

historic property or cultural resource can inﬂuence the decision-

making process.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Once you have determined the structural replacement value of

each historic property and cultural resource (when applicable) in

your preservation hierarchy, you should multiply it by the percent

damage expected to occur from a particular hazard event using the

loss estimates tables in Step 4 of FEMA 386-2. Record that value in

Column 11 of Worksheet #3.

2. Estimate losses to contents of historic properties and cultural resources.

An additional consideration for estimating losses to historic

properties is the replacement valuation of their contents. Many

historic commercial and residential buildings contain items

similar in value to those found in more contemporary buildings

and structures. Certain historic properties, however (particularly

museums, community centers, and historic sites), may contain

valuable art, antiques, and furnishings, as well as other rare historic

items. If your inventory does not list these cultural resources

separately, you should include them in the contents valuation

for the historic property. For these unique contents, it may be

necessary to consult an antiques dealer or appraiser to determine

their value or check existing insurance policies. In addition,

important cultural resources such as archives or art may be located

within a building that is not considered historic.

Once you have determined the replacement value of the contents

of a historic property, you should multiply it by the percent

damage expected to occur from a particular hazard event using

the loss estimates tables in Step 4 of FEMA 386-2. The product

of this calculation will be the costs expected to be incurred by a

community due to losses to the contents from that hazard event.

For example, if the library’s content replacement value equals

$225,000 and it is expected that 10 percent of its contents would

be damaged by a 100-year ﬂood, then estimated losses to these

contents from such a ﬂood would be $22,500.

Once you have estimated the content loss to the historic property

or cultural resource, you should record that value in Column 12 of

Worksheet #3.

3. Estimate losses due to functional downtime and displacement time.

To estimate losses due to functional downtime and displacement,

you are referred to pages 4-4 and 4-5 of FEMA 386-2. Losses due

to functional downtime are the costs associated with the amount

of time a historic property is out of business, or the amount of

revenue from visitors that would be lost if a site were destroyed.

To determine tourism losses, the loss of revenue is calculated

Collections and

Objects Damaged

by a Disaster

To determine eligibility for

FEMA funding for stabilization and

treatment of collections and objects of

exceptionally signiﬁcant value after a

disaster, see FEMA’s Collections and

Individual Objects Policy at http://www.

fema.gov/rrr/pa/9524_6.shtm.

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from the time the business is closed through the day the business

resumes operations. As stated before, you can count either loss of

revenue per day or loss of operating budget per day (based on the

annual operating budget). To calculate functional downtime losses,

multiply the average daily operating budget by the number of days

that the business is closed.

Displacement costs are associated with the amount of time a

business or service is displaced from its original location. A

standard of $1/square foot for rent, $500/month of additional

costs, and a $500 one-time cost for the initial move can be applied.

While these are the default values for a residential structure, higher

costs can be applied as long as the applicant can support higher

values through receipts or estimates. To derive displacement costs,

calculate the daily displacement cost and multiply by the number

of days the business or service would operate in its temporary

location.

Once you have calculated losses due to functional downtime and

displacement costs, you should record those values in Columns 13

and 14, respectively, of Worksheet #3.

Task B. Calculate the total loss for each hazard.

Now that you have completed all the calculations in Worksheet

#5 for each historic property and cultural resource in your

preservation hierarchy, sum the dollar value of the calculated losses

to arrive at the total estimated damage for each hazard event.

Transfer this information to Column 15 of Worksheet #3.

Summary

With the completion of your calculations in Worksheet #5, you

should have a good idea of which historic properties and cultural

resources are subject to the greatest potential damage and which

hazard event would produce the greatest potential losses. This

information will aid you in prioritizing your mitigation actions in

Phase 3.

This is the end of Step 4 of Phase 2. Following are questions you

should ask yourself to determine if you collected sufﬁcient data to

carry out your calculations to estimate losses. These are followed by

a Review Test to help you distinguish among the different types of

costs involved in estimating losses.

Functional

Downtime

The functional downtime is

the number of days that a

business would be closed due to dam

age from a hazard event before it could

resume in another location.

Displacement Time

Displacement time is the number of

days a business or service would oper

ate away from its original location due

to a hazard event.

Displacement Cost

Displacement cost is the expense for a

business or service to be relocated to

another structure because of a hazard

event. This cost can include the rent for

temporary building space per month

and a one-time cost to set up opera-

tions in the new place.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Evaluate Your Community

Were you able to assess the costs of each potential hazard

event for each resource on your inventory? Where will you

look for missing information?

Did you determine the replacement value for unique historic

properties?

Did you remember to estimate the replacement value for

contents in museums, community centers, or historic sites?

Does your loss estimate include functional downtime and

displacement costs?

Review Test (Select one answer for each question.)

Before you can calculate the estimated percent damage to a

structure you must ﬁrst determine the ___________ value.

expected.

replacement.

market.

historic.

To calculate losses due to displacement, multiply the

displacement cost per day by ___________.

the number of customers who stop by.

the cost of all the utilities for one month.

the number of days out of business.

one month’s rent.

If you do not have loss estimation tables available it is

acceptable to use historic data for your loss estimation.

True.

False.

Only if you project the historic data into present value.

If FEMA gives you approval to do so.



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To determine the value of unique resources such as historic

artifacts, antiques, or valuable art to calculate the content loss,

you can:

Consult an antiques appraiser.

Check existing insurance policies.

Both a and b.

None of the above.

Functional loss is:

The cost of not being able to operate your business

following a disaster.

The measure by which a historic property fails to meet the

standards of a modern building code.

Damage to a structure caused by a natural or manmade

disaster.

Both b and c.

Displacement cost is:

The cost of moving your house out of a ﬂoodplain.

The cost of putting a structure back on its foundation after

it has been displaced by a ﬂood.

The cost for a business or service to be relocated to a

temporary location after its normal location is damaged by

a natural or manmade disaster.

None of the above.

(Answers in Appendix D – Answers to Review Tests.)

phase 3

3-1

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develop a

mitigation

plan

Overview

n Phase 3 you will identify mitigation actions and

implementation strategies for protecting your identiﬁed historic

properties and cultural resources. This process consists of four

major steps:

Step 1. Develop mitigation goals and objectives for your

preservation hierarchy.

Step 2. Identify, evaluate, and prioritize actions.

Step 3. Prepare an implementation strategy.

Step 4. Document the mitigation planning process completed

for historic properties and cultural resources.

The steps you will take in Phase 3 for protecting your identiﬁed

historic and cultural resources parallel those for creating

the hazard mitigation plan to address the other assets in the

community. For a more detailed review of those steps, please refer

to FEMA 386-3, Developing the Mitigation Plan: Identifying Mitigation

Actions and Implementation Strategies.

Step 1. Develop Mitigation Goals

and Objectives for Historic

Properties and Cultural Resources

Before you identify mitigation actions for protecting historic

properties and cultural resources in your community, your team

must develop a set of goals and objectives. These will be used as the

basis for developing appropriate mitigation actions.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Procedures and Techniques

Task A. Review and analyze the ﬁndings

from your risk assessment.

1. Review the ﬁndings from your risk assessment.

A review of the ﬁndings from your team’s risk assessment (Phase

2) will help you formulate goals and objectives that address the

vulnerability of community assets. You should review the ﬁndings

from each step of the risk assessment. For additional information

on reviewing the ﬁndings of your risk assessment, you are referred

to pages 1-2 through 1-4 of FEMA 386-3.

You should take the following steps to complete your review of the

risk assessment ﬁndings:

Note conditions in the community that contribute to hazard

effects.

Note the hazard characteristics.

Note which historic properties and cultural resources

identiﬁed in Phase 2 are located in hazard areas. Cross

reference this with your preservation hierarchy, which you

developed in Step 3 of Phase 2.

Identify building design and construction vulnerabilities of

hazard-prone historic properties and cultural resources. Use

the results from Worksheet #3: Inventory Historic Property

and Cultural Resource Assets

from Phase 2.

Review the community value, the composite map of

vulnerabilities, and estimated losses to identify the most

vulnerable areas. Again, turn to your results from Worksheet

#3, Phase 2.

2. Develop a list of problem statements based on these ﬁndings.

Based on your team’s review of the risk assessment, you should next

develop a list of problem statements for each hazard. By the time

you are done, you may ﬁnd that you have a long list of problem

statements to address.

Several examples of problem statements are provided below:

The historic lighthouse is threatened by erosion and coastal

ﬂooding.

The downtown historic district is threatened by multiple

hazards, including earthquakes and wind storms. Repetitive



Goals

General guidelines that

explain what you want to

achieve. They are usually

broad policy statements and represent

long-term, global visions. The following

are examples of goal statements:

Our community will develop ways

to protect signiﬁcant historic prop

erties and cultural resources from

future ﬂood events.

Our community will use historic

properties as an economic develop

ment tool for community growth.

Objectives

Deﬁne strategies or implementation

steps for attaining the identiﬁed goals.

Unlike goals, objectives are speciﬁc

and measurable. The following are

examples of objectives:

Protect structures in the historic

downtown area from flood dam

age.

Rehabilitate houses in a hurricane-

prone residential historic district.

Mitigation Actions

Speciﬁc actions that help you achieve

your goals and objectives. The fol

lowing are examples of mitigation

actions:

Elevate three historic structures

located in the historic district.

Replace historic windows with

stronger glass; new window design

will match historic design.

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hazard-related loss has encouraged disinvestment, and

current zoning tools do not promote economic growth in the

neighborhood.

The town’s oral history archives are currently stored in a

basement, which is prone to ﬂooding and is not safe from ﬁre.

Property owners are not aware of hazard-related threats to

historic properties.

Task B. Formulate goals.

1. Develop proposed goal statements.

Group your problem statements and see what common theme

runs through them in order to begin formulating goals. One way

to formulate your goals is to turn these problem statements into

positive statements of what you want to do to create a stronger

community, State, or Tribe. For more information on developing

goal statements please refer to pages 1-5 and 1-6 of FEMA 386-3.

Remember that your goal statements should not identify speciﬁc

mitigation actions, but identify the overall improvements you want

to achieve. Example general goals follow:

Enhance the ability of vulnerable historic properties and

cultural resources to withstand the impact of hazards while

maintaining their integrity.

Minimize losses to areas of high economic value, including

local landmarks in the downtown district.

Encourage and support efforts to identify, evaluate, and

designate historic properties and cultural resources.

2. Review existing plans and other policy documents to

determine if your goals conﬂict with other plans.

In Phase 1, your team collected existing plans (preservation plans,

comprehensive plans, zoning and economic development plans,

transportation plans, etc.) and other policy documents. Review

these documents to ensure that their priorities do not conﬂict

with the ones you have established for your community’s historic

properties and cultural resources. You do not want to spend time

and energy on formulating goals, objectives, and mitigation actions

for protecting your community’s historic properties and cultural

resources only to discover that they conﬂict with other community

plans. This is particularly true for historic properties, which are

sometimes considered as an afterthought in other planning

decisions. When you encounter such conﬂicts you do not have to



Individual

Structures of

High Signiﬁcance

If you are focusing on a

single structure of high signiﬁcance,

check to see if it is included in an exist

ing Historic Structure Report, Cultural

Landscape Report, or Master Plan

which outlines preservation priorities.

Certain cultural resource collections

may also have existing conservation

and care plans associated with them.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

abandon a goal or the objectives and mitigation actions that stem

from them, but you do need to address the conﬂict to develop

common goals. Such goals may include protecting private property

and critical public facilities, avoiding disruptions to the local

economy, and sustaining local character and identity.

Task C. Determine objectives.

Objectives are more speciﬁc and narrower in scope than goals.

They expand on the goals and provide more detail on the ways to

accomplish them. Please review page 1-7 of FEMA 386-3 for more

detail on determining objectives.

The following objectives shape the strategy for implementing

one of the example goals listed in Task B, “Enhance the ability of

vulnerable historic properties and cultural resources to withstand

the impact of hazards while maintaining their integrity.”

Objective 1: Assess appropriate methods to retroﬁt historic

properties and protect cultural resources.

Objective 2: Promote the use of existing incentive programs

such as Federal and State income tax credits and

preservation easements.

Objective 3: Disseminate best management practices for protecting

historic properties and cultural resources.

Task D. Gather public input.

Once you have developed your goals and objectives you need to

share them with the public and gather their input. Input from

the public is important for shaping and reﬁning your goals and

objectives, and for reaching community consensus on them.

Allowing community members to participate in the planning

process will give them a sense of ownership about the plan that will

enhance their support for the plan and its implementation. As part

of this effort, it is recommended that you review pages 1-8 through

1-10 of FEMA 386-3, which provide additional information on how

to gather public input at this point in your planning process.

While many in the community may agree with the proposed

goals, the planning team may still encounter strong differences of

opinion among some community members regarding how historic

properties and cultural resources ﬁt into the hazard mitigation

plan. Ensuing debates could be emotionally charged. If at this

point, despite your outreach efforts throughout the planning

process, community divisions or professional differences between

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members of the planning team, or among government ofﬁcials,

arise over historic properties, cultural resources, and hazard

mitigation, your team may wish to work with a neutral arbitrator or

alternative dispute resolution specialist who can objectively describe

the issues, goals, and objectives of multiple interest groups, and

help achieve consensus.

This is the end of Step 1 of Phase 3. You should ask yourself the

following questions to determine if you have adequately developed

mitigation goals and objectives for incorporating your historic

properties and cultural resources into your hazard mitigation

plan. These are followed by a Review Test that you should use as

a learning aid to help you become familiar with the concepts of

hazard mitigation.

Evaluate Your Community

Have you done a thorough job of evaluating other plans and

policy documents to identify potential conﬂicts with your

preservation goals?

Have you gathered public input to shape and come to

consensus on goals and objectives for historic properties and

cultural resources?

Review Test (Select one answer for each question.)

Goals are:

General, broad, long-term visions of what your community

wants to achieve.

Implementation of strategies or steps that are measurable.

Speciﬁc measures, with a speciﬁc timeline and budget, to

ﬁx a speciﬁc problem.

All of the above.

Objectives are:

General, broad, long-term visions of what your community

wants to achieve.

Implementation of strategies or steps that are measurable.

Speciﬁc measures, with a speciﬁc timeline and budget, to

ﬁx a speciﬁc problem.

All of the above.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Actions are:

General, broad, long-term visions of what your community

wants to achieve.

Implementation of strategies or steps that are measurable.

Speciﬁc measures, with a speciﬁc timeline and budget, to

ﬁx a speciﬁc problem.

All of the above.

(Answers in Appendix D – Answers to Review Tests.)

Step 2. Identify, Evaluate,

and Prioritize Actions

In Step 2, you will identify, evaluate, and prioritize mitigation

actions to address the goals and objectives you developed. As part

of the evaluation process for determining which actions work for

your community, State, or Tribe, your planning team will assess the

levels of ﬁnancial, stafﬁng, and other resources you can devote to

implementing your identiﬁed actions. The process of identifying,

evaluating, and prioritizing mitigation actions is covered in more

detail in FEMA 386-3, Step 2, and summarized below as it applies to

integrating historic property and cultural resources into the hazard

mitigation plan.

Procedures and Techniques

Task A. Identify alternative mitigation actions.

In Task A, your planning team will identify speciﬁc mitigation

actions to address the goals and objectives that you developed.

In identifying possible mitigation actions you must evaluate a

range of mitigation approaches. Such an alternatives analysis is

necessary to determine the varying impacts and costs associated

with each action. Additionally, the Federal government mandates

that such an analysis be performed for projects that entail Federal

involvement or funding (e.g., National Environmental Policy Act

analyses). Many States also mandate a similar alternatives analysis

for State involvement.

For this task you will use Worksheet #6: Identify Alternative

Mitigation Actions for Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

(included in Appendix C) and follow the instructions located at

the end of Task A. You are also referred to Worksheet Job Aid #1:

Alternative Mitigation Actions by Hazard

, found in Appendix C.

NEPA

One of the most important

laws to comply with is the

National Environmental

Policy Act (NEPA). Signed into law by

President Nixon in 1969, NEPA estab

lishes the broad national framework for

protecting the environment, including

historic properties. NEPA’s basic policy

is to ensure that all branches of gov-

ernment give proper consideration to

the environment prior to undertaking

any major Federal action that sig

niﬁcantly affects the environment. The

NEPA process subsumes the review

of proposed actions under an array

of other Federal laws. To achieve im

proved project streamlining, NEPA and

NHPA requirements are sometimes

combined. For more on NEPA and

NHPA, see Appendix A – Glossary.

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develop a mitigation plan

Worksheet Job Aid #1 will help you evaluate a variety of potential

hazard mitigation options for historic properties and cultural

resources.

A number of approaches exist for reducing hazard-related losses

to historic properties and cultural resources. In some cases,

one action can protect against multiple hazards; in others, a

combination of actions may be needed to protect one resource.

The alternatives you identify should provide some measure of

structural or physical protection to historic properties and cultural

resources while maintaining historic integrity and a sense of place.

The types of mitigation actions chosen will vary from jurisdiction

to jurisdiction, depending on the types of historic properties

and cultural resources found, and the ability to implement one

potential action over another. Generally, mitigation actions for

historic properties and cultural resources fall into the following ﬁve

categories:

Prevention.

Property and resource protection.

Structural diversions.

Public education and awareness.

Natural resource protection for historic landscape features

and archeological sites.

See pages 3-8 to 3-22 for an explanation of the ﬁve categories of

mitigation actions you should consider in determining which

actions work for your community.

Evaluating Mitigation Actions

for Cultural Resources

Certain types of cultural resources, such as artwork, archival

collections, and collections of artifacts, are uniquely vulnerable

to hazard-related damage. You will want to evaluate a variety of

mitigation actions to protect these cultural resources and develop

appropriate storage procedures.

One aspect of cultural resource protection you should take into

consideration is the impact that mitigation actions applied to

buildings may have on the cultural resources stored or displayed

within those buildings. Another important consideration is the

relationship a resource has with its setting.

Consider All

Potential Mitigation

Actions

You don’t want some good

ideas not to be considered because of

concerns over funding. At this point in

the planning process all ideas should

be considered and evaluated.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

leaving old ones in place, or making repairs to

the existing structural system.

Older buildings that are eligible for listing

in the National Register, if stripped of their

original, historic building material, may lose

their eligibility and the potential historic

preservation tax credits that go with it. It is

important to evaluate the replacement and

replication of design elements alongside

planning and community goals, including the

use of your hierarchy or priority list.

Performance Standards

for Historic Buildings

Many enhanced building codes and per-

formance standards in hazard-prone areas

were developed for contemporary construction. It is

important to allow for ﬂexibility in the design of retro

ﬁts and rehabilitations of historic buildings.

Regulatory Actions. Regulatory actions include

building codes, zoning and subdivision

regulations, design and site plan review,

easements, ﬂoodplain buffers, and open space

requirements. The introduction of regulatory

measures to prevent the construction of

buildings in hazard-prone areas can be a useful

mitigation alternative.

Regulatory actions can provide your community

with an opportunity to ensure that future

growth and development avoid or minimize

risk of hazard-related damage. It is important,

however, that your team examine the potential

impact of regulatory actions on the future of

existing historic communities. For example, the

introduction of setbacks in a historic community

where buildings are typically set close to the

lot line may result in new construction that

Mitigation Action Category #1: Prevention

Preventive mitigation actions involve the

pre-emptive reduction of hazard-related loss

through speciﬁc administrative measures taken

very early on in the land development process.

Preventive mitigation actions include

performance standards and regulatory actions,

both of which inﬂuence the ways in which land

is developed and buildings are constructed.

Examples include planning and zoning,

building codes, capital improvement programs,

open space preservation, and storm water

management regulations.

Performance Standards. Performance standards

require that buildings and their components

be durable enough to survive certain levels of

stress from different hazard events. Ensuring

compliance with performance standards will

help reduce the likelihood that design elements

of historic buildings and other structures

located in hazard-prone areas will experience

hazard-related damage. However, without

careful analysis and creative design, character-

deﬁning features of these structures may be

unnecessarily sacriﬁced in an attempt to bring

them up to an enhanced code or performance

standard.

In meeting performance standards, you

should consider design options that attempt to

maintain historic design elements while also

providing enhanced strength and performance.

For example, sometimes the structural systems

of a building or structure may be replaced

with modern materials. At other times,

though, structural systems are an important,

character-deﬁning feature that should be

preserved in place. In these cases, such as with

a historic bridge, you may want to consider the

introduction of new structural elements while

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disrupts the unique sense of place important to

many historic districts. Additionally, regulatory

actions that prevent or limit growth in hazard-

prone areas may lead to disinvestment in, and

even abandonment of, historic areas. This is

particularly important in communities with

large concentrations of historic properties in

the ﬂoodplain.

Thoughtful use of regulatory action can both

promote economic growth and encourage

disaster-resistant design. For example, in

hazard-prone areas, a balanced combination

of density controls or overlay zones with

preservation-friendly investment incentives

can foster economic growth while keeping

new construction and population growth at

reasonable levels. Design review and site plan

review can lead to new construction that is

both disaster-resistant and adheres to the

scale, setting, materials, and sense of place of a

particular historic district.

National Flood Insurance

Program (NFIP) and

Historic Structures

The NFIP provides relief to historic structures by waiving

new construction and substantial improvement require

ments of the program. This exclusion from the new con

struction requirements serves as an added incentive for

property owners to maintain the historic character of the

designated structure.

The NFIP ﬂoodplain management requirements contain

the following two provisions intended to provide relief

for historic structures located in Special Flood Hazard

Areas. Communities have the option of using either

provision for addressing the unique needs of historic

structures:

In the deﬁnition of “substantial improvement” at 44

CFR 59.1, “alteration to an historic structure does

not constitute a substantial improvement, provided

that the alteration will not preclude the structure’s

continued designation as an historic structure.” The

same also applies to historic structures that have been

“substantially damaged.”



State Building Codes for

Historic Structures

Some States have developed building

codes that are speciﬁc to the rehabilitation

of historic buildings. You should check to see if your

State has such a code, or consider using another

existing code as a springboard for discussion about

code compliance.

Representative examples of such codes are the

State of Maryland’s Building Rehabilitation Code

(available online at http://www.dnr.state.md.us/

education/growfromhere/lesson15/mdp/smartcode/

smartcode00.htm) and the State of New Jersey’s

Uniform Construction Code of Rehabilitation

Subcode. This code (New Jersey Administrative

Code, Title 5, Chapter 23, Subchapter 6) is available

online at http://www.state.nj.us/dca/codes/rehab/

index.shtml. Both codes offer alternative codes for

the repair, renovation, and reuse of buildings that

otherwise would not have met existing codes without

a prohibitive amount of investment.

Other codes include alternative methods of perfor

mance analysis (e.g., the ABK methodology de

scribed in Appendix A for seismic-prone buildings),

regional codes (e.g., the State Historical Building

Code in California) and national codes (e.g., the

Universal Code for Building Conservation).

The other provision of the NFIP ﬂoodplain manage

ment regulations that provides relief for historic

structures is 44 CFR 60.6(a). This provision states

“Variances may be granted for the repair or rehabilita-

tion of historic structures upon a determination that

the proposed repair or rehabilitation will not preclude

the structure’s continued designation as a historic

structure and the variance is the minimum necessary

to preserve the historic character and design of the

structure.”

However, NFIP ﬂoodplain management requirements

could apply to additions to historic structures if they are

located in a ﬂoodway. All structures, including historic

structures, must comply with the ﬂoodway encroach

ment provisions of Section 60.3(c)(10) and (d)(3) of the

NFIP regulations. For example, any addition to a historic

structure that expands the square footage of the struc

ture beyond its existing footprint must comply with the

regulatory ﬂoodway criteria. Under these regulations, any

addition to a historic structure that results in a rise of the

Base Flood Elevation will be prohibited.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

This category includes basic property

improvements performed by the owner,

including retroﬁtting, elevation, relocation, and

acquisition.

Basic Property Improvements. Property owners

can often undertake a variety of relatively simple

improvements to reduce hazards facing their

property. Although these improvements provide

limited protection from hazard-related damage,

they have minimal impact on character-deﬁning

design features and are relatively low in cost.

Basic property improvements include

ﬂoodprooﬁng, elevating and retroﬁtting utility

systems, creating safe rooms, and anchoring

and relocating furniture and other vulnerable

contents. For example, heirlooms and other

cultural resources may be removed from ﬂood-

prone basements and stored in safer locations.

In turn, ﬂood-prone basements may themselves

be renovated so that they can be ﬂooded

without damage to the building or foundation.

Retroﬁtting. Retroﬁtting entails the

replacement or rehabilitation of building

and structural systems to improve their ability

to withstand structural forces. Retroﬁtting

of historic structures can be highly intrusive

because of the risk of removing character-

deﬁning design elements, or having them

obscured with incompatible modern materials.

It is possible, however, to design retroﬁtting

projects in which character-deﬁning features

are preserved in place and retroﬁtting measures

are hidden from view. In addition, reproduction

of historic facades or design elements using

modern materials may conform to the Secretary

of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation

and also

maintain the National Register eligibility of a

historic building.

For buildings and structures identiﬁed as

vulnerable to earthquake hazards, structural

retroﬁtting may be particularly useful. Seismic

retroﬁts include the following actions:

Introduction of sub-foundation dampers

that can absorb sudden pressure.

Reinforcement of foundation and wall

connections.

Replacement of older structural elements

with modern materials.

Reinforcement of structural connections

by “sistering” old connections with new

patches.

Bracing of parapets and anchoring of

nonstructural elements.



Many contemporary building codes include

standards for minimizing damage from hazard

events. Code sections on retroﬁtting offer one

such example. Frequently, these codes are

intended for contemporary building materials

and construction techniques, so it is important

that you allow considerable ﬂexibility in

applying them to historic buildings.

You may want to bring together a building

code ofﬁcial and a design professional to

discuss possibilities for code compliance. Their

discussion may yield creative design solutions

that comply with the basic tenets of the building

code while retaining character-deﬁning

historic features. Flexibility and willingness to

compromise will be key.

Mitigation Action Category #2:

Property and Resource Protection

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In areas prone to wind and coastal storm events,

retroﬁtting projects should pay particular

attention to the following:

The strength of rooﬁng joists and

connections.

The strength of window glass, frames, and

shutters. For example, shatter-resistant

glass or storm shutters could be installed.

The construction of the foundation,

particularly in areas prone to repetitive or

high-velocity ﬂooding.

To reduce the threat of damage from ﬁre

retroﬁtting projects should consider the

following:

Upgrading mechanical and ﬁre-protection

systems.

Balancing the need to conform to current

codes and the preservation of character-



Seismic Retroﬁt

Publications

There are several publications that provide

information on seismic retroﬁt, including

ASCE 31, Seismic Evaluation of Existing Buildings

and FEMA 356, Prestandard and Commentary for

the Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings. Additionally,

FEMA’s forthcoming publication on seismic retroﬁts

provides additional guidance on decision-making

for seismic-prone historic properties. This guide

contains information about multiple retroﬁt design

options. In addition, this guide contains speciﬁc

information about both baseline and complex tools

for understanding historic building systems. Factors

which might trigger the use of more complex evalu-

ation tools include a building with highly signiﬁcant

and unique historic design features, unusual geologic

conditions, or a difference of opinion about the out

come of baseline evaluation results.

FEMA 312, Homeowner’s Guide to Retrofitting

and FEMA 348, Protecting Building Utilities from

Flood Damage are two publications that provide

speciﬁc information on protecting structures from

ﬂood damage.

deﬁning features. For example, the

seemingly random placement of modern

pull-boxes, sprinklers, and sirens may

disrupt the interior and historic ambience

of an eighteenth-century house museum.

Creative input from a preservation

architect, however, may allow you to

conceal ﬁre-protection improvements and

thus retain a historic sense of place inside

the building.

To address vulnerability to manmade hazards,

such as terrorism, the following retroﬁtting

measures should be considered:

Access control: Access can be controlled

by retroﬁtting certain physical aspects

of a building, structure, or site, or by

enhancing security at points of potential

entry:

Security measures:

Security measures

include screening visitors and limiting

or prohibiting access. Although

limiting public access may reduce the

signiﬁcance of certain historic properties

and cultural resources, use of alternative

public interpretation programs can still

allow public involvement. For signiﬁcant

public spaces, work with curators and

building managers to explore ways to

control rather than prohibit access.

Site planning and landscape design:

Although historic landscape features

often contribute to the character

of a site, they may not work well for

controlling access. In these cases,

you should ask an experienced

landscape architect to design new site

elements that restrict ingress while still

complementing and retaining historic

landscape features. For speciﬁc advice

on how to design new site features for

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

historic properties, refer to the Secretary

of the Interior’s Standards.

Architectural and interior space planning:

Although interior spaces—particularly

those with a high amount of human

trafﬁc, such as lobbies—can be

retroﬁtted to serve as control points, in

many historic buildings, these spaces are

themselves character-deﬁning features.

To ﬁnd creative solutions for adding

architectural design features that control

access but also preserve important

features, try consulting an experienced

preservation architect.

Blast resistance:

In addition to controlling

access, ensuring a certain level of blast

resistance may be important in retroﬁtting

a historic structure. When recommending

blast-resistant walls or window systems,

you should see that their design does not

conﬂict with existing character-deﬁning

exterior elements. Many historic buildings

are signiﬁcant because of exterior design

qualities, while structures such as bridges

are notable for exposed structural

elements.

Lighting improvements: Improved lighting

may also enhance the security of a historic



Balancing Historic

Preservation and the

Nation’s Security

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11,

2001, concrete Jersey barriers were placed around

the famous monuments and buildings of Washington,

DC, and access to many monuments was restricted or

prohibited altogether. Although the barriers provided

immediate security, they were visually incompatible

with DC’s famous historic architecture. Moreover,

access restrictions gave the perception that cultural

sites were off limits. This perception, combined with

the general perception that the nation’s capital was a

terrorist target, led to a decline in tourist activity and,

consequently, tourist revenue.

In an attempt to strike an appropriate balance be

tween increasing security and retaining the city’s

unique urban design, the National Capital Planning

Commission formed an Interagency Task Force,

whose work resulted in Designing for Security in the

Nation’s Capital (October 2001), which grew into The

National Capital Urban Design and Security Plan

(October 2002). The Plan provides speciﬁc guidance

for design improvements that enhance the city’s

traditional open, pedestrian environment while still

providing enhanced security. For example, the Plan

calls for the use of hardened benches, landscaping

elements such as vegetation, discrete bollards, and

concrete planters to serve as security features for

Federal facilities, monuments, and museums. While

these improvements are clearly contemporary, they

use forms and materials that are compatible with their

nineteenth and early twentieth century monumental

settings. The urban design features recommended

by the Plan not only enhance protection and secu

rity, but also ﬁt the city’s traditional sense of place.

The Plan is available on line at http://www.ncpc.

gov/publications_press/publications.html.

Integrating Modern Materials into Historic Structures

When recommending retroﬁtting as a mitigation action,

you should ensure that new designs and new materials

not obscure existing signiﬁcant historic features, and

retroﬁtting should reference important historic design

elements. New hazard mitigation measures for historic

properties can provide an opportunity to enhance your

community’s architecture while highlighting the past.

More information about the appropriate design of addi

tions to historic properties is available from your SHPO

and NPS at http://www2.cr.nps.gov/tps/standguide/re

hab/rehab_newadd.htm.

Working with a highly experienced preser-

vation architect, you can develop structural

interventions that do not obscure historic

design elements of a historic structure, but rather intro

duce modern and aesthetically rich elements that help to

protect the property. For example, during a mechanical

renovation of the Library of Congress in Washington,

DC, new ﬁre protection systems were integrated into

the existing historic design. Sprinklers were placed in

the middle of decorative ﬂoral rosettes. This illustrates

how modern elements can be successfully integrated

into historic fabric.

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property or cultural resource. Before

altering the lighting in and around a

historic resource, however, you must

consider the potential impact that interior

and exterior lighting systems may have

on historic elements. In highly signiﬁcant

interior spaces, lower lighting may be an

important historic feature.

A Local Success Story in South Carolina

Elevation. One of the most common methods

of protecting ﬂood-prone buildings, elevation

involves raising a building so that its lowest

ﬂoor is above the Base Flood Elevation (BFE),

or the 100-year ﬂood zone. Where less intrusive

elevation is desired, historic buildings can be

elevated to below the BFE while integrating

other property protection measures to reduce

vulnerability to hazard-related damage.

113 Calhoun Street is a 125-year-old, three-story house

that stands in the heart of the downtown historic district

of Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston, vulnerable to

damage from multiple hazards (including coastal storms,

earthquakes, and ﬂooding), has one of the nation’s

oldest local historic district ordinances. Built between

1875 and 1880, the house is an example of the regional

“single house” style. Already abandoned for several

113 Calhoun at inception of project. 113 Calhoun today.

Photos courtesy of 113 Calhoun Street Foundation

years by the time Hurricane Hugo struck in 1989, 113

Calhoun Street was in serious danger of collapse by

1997. Instead of demolishing the building, though, the

City of Charleston donated it to the 113 Calhoun Street

Foundation, a non-proﬁt partnership formed between

the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium, Clemson

University, and the City.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Using creative design solutions the 113 Calhoun Street

Foundation transformed the derelict building into an

educational center demonstrating low-impact, sustain-

able-living design concepts. Primary funding for the initial

construction was provided by FEMA, while additional

support, including the donation of products and services,

came from the private sector.

It was determined that an elevation above the BFE would

not have been appropriate for 113 Calhoun Street. Such

an elevation would have raised the building more than 5

feet, which would not have been in keeping with the sur

rounding streetscape and character of the historic district.

Instead, the organization elevated the house only one

foot, undertaking a variety of other types of interior and

exterior improvements to protect against hazards.

Even though it was elevated below the BFE, the house

is still protected from minor ﬂooding events and suffers

less damage in major ﬂooding events. Improvements to

the house included the following:

Placing HVAC ductwork at ceiling level and returns

above the BFE.

Placing electrical, telephone, and computer outlets

above the BFE, with no splices or connections below

the BFE.

Installing interior decorative wainscoting to the BFE.

This wainscoting consisted of water-resistant material,

and could be removed to dry after a ﬂood event.

Designing interior structural elements so that a “con

tinuous load path” was created that minimized weak

links in the building’s structural system.

Tying hurricane clips on the roof to metal connectors

that ran down three ﬂoors and were bolted to the con

crete foundation. The structural improvements did not

compromise any exterior or interior historic features.



Installing traditional wood colonial shutters on the

ﬁrst ﬂoor, and heavy duty aluminum shutters, which

offered greater protection against coastal storms, on

the second and third stories.

Replacing the existing roof with a standing seam metal

roof in keeping with the district’s historic character.

Developing a special fastener system, in which screws

supplemented nails, to give the roof a greater ability

to withstand hurricane winds.

Replacing the building’s deteriorated original founda

tion of unreinforced masonry brick with a new foun

dation consisting of concrete footings with steel ties.

This new system allowed new timber members to be

bolted to the foundation, protecting against the twisting

movements and other movements caused by seismic

and wind forces. Brick from the original foundation was

re-used as a veneer on the new foundation.

Care was taken to ensure that improvements did not

compromise the exterior or interior historic features of

the house, and that these features could be retained

where possible. For example, almost all the building’s

original cypress siding was still intact and, despite years

of neglect, was retained.

When construction was completed in 2000, the 113 Cal

houn Street Foundation received multiple national awards

for its work from organizations such as the Association

of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) and the National

Trust for Historic Preservation.

Additional information about the 113 Calhoun improve

ment project, including detailed plan drawings and a

video tour of the house, are available online at http://

www.113calhoun.org.



An advantage of elevation is that it can bring

a structure into compliance with ﬂoodplain

regulations and reduce ﬂood insurance

premiums for the owner. The building has to

either be raised above the BFE, or raised to a

lower level but combined with other property

protection actions. Flood insurance can be a

great beneﬁt to owners of historic structures.

If the structure is kept in compliance with

NFIP regulations and is damaged in a ﬂood,

the structure has a greater likelihood of being

properly repaired because the owner can afford

the repairs thanks to the insurance.

Elevation is often relatively cost-effective, with

a number of qualiﬁed contractors available to

perform the work. Before elevating a property,

however, owners must ensure that a contractor

has the experience and qualiﬁcations required

to elevate historic structures. Your SHPO may be

able to offer you additional advice on elevating

buildings.

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Publications on Elevating

Flood-Prone Structures

FEMA has developed two publications that

provide information on elevating flood-

prone structures: FEMA 312, Homeowner’s Guide to

Retroﬁtting and FEMA 348, Protecting Building Utili

ties from Flood Damage. These can be ordered free

of charge from the FEMA Publications Warehouse.

Because elevation may alter the appearance

and scale of a historic building and redeﬁne

its relationship to its setting, it may have a

negative impact on a building’s character-

deﬁning features. Every effort should be made

to replicate or approximate the original scale

and setting of the building when elevating it. If

the building is raised only several feet, elevation

should not severely alter scale (see top ﬁgure

on the right). Additionally, you can recommend

the manipulation of certain landscape features

to reduce the visual impact of a slight elevation.

By adhering to the Secretary of the Interior’s

Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties

and

by minimizing elevation, a building’s original

historic setting, scale, and distinctive features

may be preserved.

Trying to retain original scale and setting is

particularly important when employing another

method of elevation, i.e., regrading the site and

placing ﬁll beneath the building in an attempt

to maintain the original distance between

building and grade. Special care should be

taken when elevating a building set within a

consistent street wall. For example, if the front

doors of a block of houses in a historic district

open directly onto the sidewalk, elevating the

building may necessitate a stairway, which in

turn would necessitate a setback further from

the sidewalk (see bottom ﬁgure on the right).

This would disrupt the building’s relationship to

surrounding buildings. A preservation-sensitive

alternative would be the elevation of ﬂoors

within the building, particularly feasible in

historic commercial structures with tall ceilings,

or elevating a neighborhood of structures rather

than a single building.

Regrading of elevated building.

Elevation can affect setback from the street.

Source: Looking to the Future: Alternatives for Reducing Flood-related

Damages in Historic Communities, Milton, Pennsylvania, June 2002

Effective Elevation

Elevation can be an effective mitigation

action if designed and constructed appro

priately to withstand ﬂood forces. Elevation

is a practical solution for ﬂooding problems, but the

ﬂooding conditions and other hazards at the site must

be examined so that the most suitable technique

can be determined. At a minimum, the foundation of

the elevated structure must be able to withstand the

expected loads from hydrostatic pressure, hydrody

namic pressure, and debris impact resulting from

a ﬂood. The foundation must also be able to resist

undermining by any expected erosion and scour.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Offsetting Mitigation Actions

To offset the impacts of mitigation measures

involving ground disturbance—such as

foundation work during an elevation proj

ect—partial excavation might be considered when an

archeological site is identiﬁed. This type of excavation

would allow professional archeologists to conduct a data

recovery excavation of artifacts potentially buried in the

surrounding ground. The cultural artifacts recovered dur-

ing these meticulous excavations would then be studied

and curated in an archive.

Another offsetting measure would be the development of

community-based histories. These documentary projects

could include any of the following:

A Local Success Story

in North Carolina

The town of Belhaven, North Carolina, along

the Pungo River, is subject to repeated ﬂood

ing. In its last ﬂood event, over 60% of the town’s build

ings were damaged, including most of the buildings in

the National Register-listed Belhaven Historic District. In

an effort to retain the town’s historic and economic link

to the waterfront, the decision was made to elevate 379

properties in place rather than relocate them to higher

ground or demolish and rebuild them.

With assistance from the North Carolina SHPO ofﬁce,

plans were developed for an elevation project that would

best preserve the historic character of the district. In the

plans, frame buildings were raised onto concrete block

foundations faced with brick veneer. Brick buildings were

elevated onto continuous concrete block foundations,

which were also faced with brick veneer. A projecting

brick course was used to demarcate where the original

house ended and the new foundation began. Additional

guidance was drafted for preserving porches, railings,

balusters, and steps, and for replacing old materials with

appropriate new materials where necessary.

To prepare for the elevation project, large-format archival

photographs were taken of each building that would be

affected by the project. These photos provided a per

manent record of the historic appearance of the district.

Due to all these extra planning efforts for preserving its

Frame building elevated on concrete block

foundation faced with brick veneer. Belhaven,

North Carolina.

Photo by Mark Wolfe/FEMA News Photo

A recording of oral histories;

A compilation of written memories;

The production of a historical documentary on video

or for posting on the Internet;

The conservation of historic artifacts, documents,

home movies, and historic photographs as part of a

documented archival collection; and

Museum exhibits that document and explain the

importance of local historic events to regional and

national history.



historic properties, the Belhaven Historic District was

able to maintain its National Register status.

By the time the next ﬂood struck Belhaven, 32 of the

planned 379 houses had been elevated. It is estimated

that elevation of these 32 properties alone saved the town

over $1.3 million in direct and indirect damages.

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Relocation. Relocation means moving historic

properties and cultural resources out of harm’s

way. Your SHPO/THPO may maintain a list of

qualiﬁed building movers in your jurisdiction,

or may be able to refer you to other projects in

which historic properties were moved.

Relocation of buildings generally involves

raising the building and placing it on a wheeled

vehicle, usually a large ﬂatbed trailer. The

building is then transported to the new site

and lowered onto a new foundation. The

easiest buildings to move are one-story frame

structures. Multi-story and solid masonry

buildings are more difﬁcult because of their

Demolition

Removal of structures from the areas of risk is

the most permanent form of hazard mitigation.

While this may be the most practical solution

for buildings subject to repetitive hazard events and that

have sustained extensive structural damage, demolition

of individual historic buildings or multiple buildings within

historic districts has serious ramiﬁcations. When a his-

toric building is demolished it is gone forever. Above all,

indiscriminate demolition of historic buildings should be

avoided because it can create a patchwork of remaining

buildings in historic districts. Finally, if enough historic

buildings are demolished in a district that is eligible for

listing in the National Register, the remaining buildings

may not possess sufﬁcient signiﬁcance or integrity for the

district to retain its eligibility. Therefore, where technically

feasible, other options besides acquisition and demolition

should be considered for historic structures. Alternative

options may make use of acquisition, but instead of

demolishing the property, convert it to a different use. A

community could acquire a historic mill in a ﬂoodplain

and convert it into a public picnic area. Although structural

improvements and basic exterior maintenance might be

undertaken, the mill would not be occupied. Structural

improvements could include modifying the foundation

to increase ﬂow-through of ﬂoodwater during a ﬂood

event.

Historic buildings often share important features such

as landscaping, outbuildings, alleyways, orientation, and

setback—the distance between the buildings and the

street. These contributing features often help to deﬁne

a neighborhood’s historic signiﬁcance (see top ﬁgure on

right). Relocation should be carried out with extreme care

greater weight and size; even so, large buildings

such as theaters have been successfully moved.

Masonry buildings, buildings with stone or

brick veneer, and buildings with chimneys may

require extensive bracing to prevent cracking or

structural failure.

One drawback to relocation is that it can

be costly if the owner of the building needs

to purchase a new lot on which to relocate

the building. There is also the expense of

preparing the new site. Moreover, permits for

this site preparation may be required by local

government, highway departments, and utility

companies.

to ensure that the relationship between individual historic

buildings within a neighborhood is maintained. If impor-

tant contributing features are neglected when historic

buildings are relocated, historic neighborhoods may lose

their sense of cohesiveness (see ﬁgure above).

Source: Looking to the Future, Alternatives for

Reducing Flood-Related Damages in Historic

Communities, Milton, Pennsylvania, June 2002

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

The relocation of several buildings out of a

historic district can have a great impact on it;

removing a house from among its neighbors

may leave an inappropriate “gap-toothed”

opening in the traditional streetscape. If too

many structures are removed from their original

locations, the character of a historic district

may be seriously compromised. You must also

Historic Emergency

Response Facilities

The facilities in your community involved in

ﬁrst response to hazard events are sometimes

historic properties requiring protection from hazards.

These include hospitals, police or ﬁre stations, schools,

or emergency shelters. Because these facilities are often

on the front lines of post-disaster response, their level

of life-safety design is important in ensuring the safety

of those who work within them or are brought there for

treatment, shelter, and other types of emergency service.

You will want to make sure that these ﬁrst responders

are located in buildings with a high degree of structural

stability. Therefore, your team may need to evaluate if

the level of life-safety design required by these build

ings can be achieved without a negative impact on their

character-deﬁning historic features. If you do ﬁnd conﬂicts

between these two design considerations, try working

with an experienced design professional to identify ways

to retain important historic design features while allowing

for ﬁrst responder functionality.

In the event that the high level of life safety design re

quired by a critical response facility seriously conﬂicts

with its character-deﬁning historic features, you should

evaluate other uses for the building. For those buildings

whose historic features are signiﬁcant enough to war

rant preservation, the critical response function could

be moved to a new or existing facility more appropriate

to serving this function. The original building could be

evaluated for new uses that would affect its historic ele-

ments to a lesser degree, as well as for the possibility

of rehabilitation. It is important that the community not

simply abandon a historic facility because it cannot sup

port its current use. One creative solution for funding the

construction costs of the new facility could be commercial

redevelopment of the original historic facility. In this way

the building is converted to a new, more preservation-

sensitive use, while still maintaining—perhaps increas-

ing—its ability to generate revenue.

In addition to emergency response facilities, other

structures, such as ﬂood control systems or shelters,

may be signiﬁcant to your community’s past. Some of

these structures may represent important advances in

the history of civil engineering and community planning.

If they have outlived their usefulness you should work

with an experienced architect to identify and evaluate

solutions that would retain their important character-

deﬁning design features.

consider whether the new neighborhood will

be compatible with the period design of the

building, and whether the building itself will

be compatible with its new neighborhood.

One option is to relocate historic buildings in

groups to new neighborhoods that are likewise

historically and aesthetically compatible (see

ﬁgures on previous page).

Mitigation Action Category #3: Structural Diversions

Structural diversions are physical barriers that

hold back ﬂoodwater, mud, and other debris

resulting from hazard events such as ﬂoods and

landslides. With their ability to protect whole

neighborhoods, they offer the advantage of

minimizing the need for retroﬁtting individual

structures against hazards. Floodwalls and levees

are two common types of structural diversions.

Other examples include seawalls and

landslide protection obstructions.

Levees are embankments of compacted soil

built to protect an area against ﬂoodwaters

from rising waterways. If built alongside

a waterway they have the potential to

protect an entire community. Due to their

massive size, however, levees can disrupt a

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Invisible Flood Control Wall

Invisible ﬂood control wall in Louisville, Kentucky.

Photo courtesy of Flood Control America

http://www.ﬂoodcontrolam.com

One technological innovation does away with the wall

part of the ﬂoodwall altogether, until a ﬂood is imminent.

Trademarked as the “Invisible Flood Control Wall,” the

aluminum planks that comprise the wall are stored offsite

until they are needed. They are attached to the reinforced

concrete foundation and metal sill plate, which are the

only elements of the ﬂood wall that are permanently

installed along the ﬂoodway.

Community Beautiﬁcation Project—Decorative Floodwalls

The Strawberry Festival

Railroads and Railways

A solution for unsightly ﬂoodwalls

is to decorate them. Paducah, Ken

tucky, turned its huge concrete ﬂood

wall into an artistic amenity by cover-

ing it with a series of murals showing

the history of the town.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

The Broadway Scene

The Paducah Flood

See more of the murals on the Web

at http://www.kentuckylake.com/

gallery/ontheroad/The%20Wall/

080802wall.htm.

Photos courtesy of Dafford Murals

http://www.daffordmurals.com

community’s relationship to the waterway, be

extremely costly to construct and maintain,

and require a large amount of land for their

construction.

More practical than levees for protecting

individual structures, ﬂoodwalls are typically

reinforced concrete and masonry structures

that protect small lots and tight spaces from

ﬂoodwaters of a few feet. They can be used to

protect windows, doors, or bulkheads. For this

reason, ﬂoodwalls are often used in conjunction

with other ﬂood protection methods.

By signiﬁcantly reducing the risk to a structure

and its contents, structural diversions may make

it possible to continue occupying a building

during a hazard event. Another advantage they

offer is that they may be built sufﬁciently distant

from historic buildings as to be completely

unobtrusive. Some ﬂood-prone communities

have considered the use of removable

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ﬂoodwalls, which are constructed shortly before

an anticipated ﬂood event.

While ﬂoodwalls can sometimes be small in

scale, it can be difﬁcult to design permanent

ﬂoodwalls that blend into the unique setting

of a historic district. Much success in the

design depends on the height of the diversion

structures and their distance from historic

buildings. Levees and ﬂoodwalls may not

only affect the visual character of a historic

community, they can restrict access to the

commercial and recreational uses of the

waterway.

Another drawback to structural diversions is

that they often create a false sense of security

when ﬂoodwaters are higher than expected.

Floodwalls and levees that are overtopped

during a ﬂood offer little or no protection at all.

A failing levee or ﬂoodwall can be dangerous,

producing high-velocity water ﬂows that can

cause massive structural damage to properties.

Mitigation Action Category #4:

Public Education and Awareness

Mitigation actions involving public education

and awareness include outreach projects, real

estate disclosure, hazard information centers,

and both school-based and adult education

programs.

A public education campaign can build on the

public involvement tools used earlier in the

planning process. Public education is often not

enough to protect all your community’s historic

properties, but it can be effectively combined

with other hazard mitigation actions. In the case

of certain cultural resources, such as personal

photographs and family collections, public

education and awareness can be one of your

most powerful tools.

As you explore public education as a possible

mitigation alternative you may ﬁnd that historic

preservation organizations are sponsoring

ongoing outreach efforts in the area. If so,

consider ways in which public education about

hazard-prone historic properties and cultural

resources can be linked to existing outreach

campaigns.

Mitigation Action Category #5: Natural Resource Protection

for Historic Landscape Features and Archeological Sites

In addition to mitigation actions that protect

historic buildings and other historic features

of the built environment, your team may also

want to consider mitigation actions that protect

natural features that played an important role

in past human activities. These natural features

may either be historic properties themselves,

or contribute to an understanding of historic

properties. They might include the gardens

and designed landscapes of historic properties,

rivers, or bays that served as transportation

routes, wetlands that were used for farming, or

traditional cultural properties.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Some of these natural features may also possess

economic value for your community, especially

if they are visitor destinations or recreational

sites. You will want to carefully consider

actions that would protect the most important

features of these sites, such as topography and

vegetation, from natural hazards.

Be aware, however, that some of these natural

features, such as forested and riverine areas,

may actually also comprise some of the natural

hazards that threaten your community.

Natural Resource Protection

Actions for Historic

Landscape Features

Actions that, in addition to minimizing

hazards, also preserve or restore the functions of

natural systems. Some natural resources either are

historic properties in themselves or contribute to

an understanding of historic properties. Such types

of mitigation actions include sediment and erosion

control, stream corridor restoration, watershed man

agement, forest and vegetation management, and

wetland restoration and preservation.

Mitigation actions can serve to both mitigate

natural hazards and preserve the natural

resources that give rise to those hazards. For

example, stream corridor restoration and

erosion control, watershed management,

and wetland restoration can protect against

ﬂooding while still preserving the integrity of

these natural resources. Likewise, forest and

vegetation management can protect against the

threat of wildﬁre while still preserving a wildlife

refuge.

You will also want to evaluate mitigation

alternatives for protecting locations known to

contain or likely to contain buried archeological

sites and artifacts. In situ archeological sites and

features (which have not yet been excavated)

are particularly vulnerable to exposure

and disturbance by erosion, ﬂooding, and

landslides. One alternative for preserving these

sites for study by future generations is to cover

them over with earthen ﬁll, which will offer

some protection against hazard exposure.

While some resources, such as artwork displayed in a museum, may

not have an important relationship to its setting, other resources,

such as a mural located within a school, may have a very important

historic relationship to its surrounding.

In selecting mitigation actions for cultural resources that have an

important relationship to their surroundings, you should consider

actions that maintain that relationship as much as possible. For

these resources, you will want to explore options for safer storage

or display before considering relocation offsite (e.g., use of

water-proof containers or removal to an upper ﬂoor of the same

building). Your team should also consider ways in which ongoing

maintenance of the resource might reduce further deterioration,

or ways to better secure the resource to its base or storage

mechanism. These strategies also apply to resources that must

remain onsite, or whose relocation would be infeasible.

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For those cultural resources that do not have a signiﬁcant

relationship to their setting—often called moveable resources—

relocation can be an easy way to ensure their protection. For

example, an archive of historic photographs found in a ﬂood-prone

library can be relocated to the local preservation society’s ofﬁce

located outside of the ﬂoodplain.

To protect cultural resources against tornadoes and wind-related

hazard events, you should consider storing them in a safe room. A

safe room is a room designed to a higher level of life-safety. These

rooms are often constructed with the purpose of providing a secure

location for valuables, as well as a safe refuge for people. For more

information about safe rooms, please see Protecting Yourself from

Tornadoes: Safe Rooms, available from FEMA at http://www.fema.

gov/mit/saferoom.

Mitigation actions for cultural resources should also take into

account the physical placement of these resources in relation

to hazards. For example, to protect against wind events and

earthquakes, resources should be kept far away from heavy objects

and windows that might be broken or knocked about during a

hazard event. Particularly in earthquake-prone areas, resources

should be placed on secured, reinforced shelving in such a manner

as to prevent their breakage during an earthquake. As discussed

above, relocation of resources to a safer elevation or alternate

location can offer protection against ﬂood events.

To protect against ﬁre, the placement of ﬁre alarms and sprinklers

should be evaluated to ensure they are appropriately placed in

relation to storage or exhibit spaces. The materials and design

used to construct those spaces should also be examined for their

ﬁre resistance. Some highly signiﬁcant collections will need to be

stored in locations with greater ﬁre resistance (e.g., a storage area

protected by a rated ﬁrewall).

Likewise, the construction and type of material used in display

cases and storage areas should be examined for their resistance to

water. In addition, the locations of pipes and roof leaks should be

assessed, since cultural resources might inadvertently be kept in

locations that are vulnerable to leaking water.

Instructions for Worksheet #6

Use Worksheet #6 to record the alternative mitigation actions

you identify for protecting the historic properties and cultural

resources included in your preservation hierarchy. For each of

the objectives you developed in Step 1, Task C, you should make

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

a copy of Worksheet #6 and record that objective at the top of the

worksheet, along with its corresponding goal. You will next begin

the process of identifying appropriate alternative mitigation actions

for addressing that objective. Once you have identiﬁed a set of

alternative actions, you should list them in the Alternative Actions

column of the worksheet. Additionally, at the bottom of each copy

of Worksheet #6, check off the mitigation action categories that

apply to the objective you wrote down at the top of the Worksheet.

As you research possible mitigation action alternatives, you will

likely consult a variety of sources to learn more about each. Please

see pages 2-2 through 2-6 of FEMA 386-3 for more information on

reviewing existing literature and success stories, and on soliciting

public opinion and input.

Once you have identiﬁed useful sources of information for each

alternative mitigation action you identify, record that source in the

Sources of Information column of Worksheet #6.

Now that you have identiﬁed possible mitigation alternatives, your

next step is to start evaluating them for eventual selection and

prioritization.

Task B. Identify and analyze State and

local mitigation capabilities.

One of your ﬁrst steps in evaluating the mitigation action

alternatives your planning team has identiﬁed is to determine the

levels of resources your community, State, or Tribe can devote to

these preservation strategies. To accomplish this you should review

your Tribal capability assessment or your State and local capability

assessments.

For more information on conducting such a review, please refer

to pages 2-7 through 2-11 of FEMA 386-3. Upon completion of

your review, your team should have a fairly good idea of the types

of technical assistance and funding that Tribal, State, and local

governments can provide toward mitigation actions for historic

properties and cultural resources.

Task C. Evaluate, select, and prioritize

speciﬁc mitigation actions.

Evaluate alternative mitigation actions.

Now that the planning team has completed Worksheet #6

and reviewed the applicable capability assessments, it must

evaluate whether the alternative mitigation actions fulﬁll

your objectives and if they are appropriate for your historic

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and cultural resources. There are several ways to develop and

apply evaluation criteria. This guide discusses three methods

for evaluating mitigation actions. The ﬁrst is using your

preservation hierarchy; the second is the

Social, Technical,

Administrative, Political, Legal, Economic, and Environmental

(STAPLEE) criteria analysis; and the third is the Beneﬁt-Cost

Analysis (BCA); they are explained in the following sections.

Your preservation hierarchy and areas of highest risk will help

identify historic properties and cultural resources that should

be treated with the most preservation-sensitive mitigation

measures, those with the least possible negative impacts to

character-deﬁning features. The STAPLEE criteria (see page

3-27) will help your team evaluate mitigation alternatives in the

context of multiple community-identiﬁed goals. The BCA will

help you determine which mitigation projects are the most cost-

effective for your community. By cross-referencing your results

from these three methods you should be able to select the

mitigation actions most appropriate to your community.

Evaluate alternative mitigation actions based on your

preservation hierarchy and areas of highest risk.

The list of preservation priorities you developed earlier will

give your planning team an idea of the types of mitigation

actions that are appropriate for certain historic properties

and cultural resources. Generally, the least intrusive options

should be considered and carefully evaluated for use on the

most signiﬁcant historic properties and cultural resources,

while more intrusive options are considered for less

signiﬁcant properties and resources. With careful planning,

you can help to ensure that your community faces reduced

harm from hazards while retaining its unique sense of place.

In summary, you will want to strike a balance between

implementing cost-effective, possibly intrusive mitigation

actions for less historically signiﬁcant properties and

cultural resources, and implementing more expensive,

less intrusive measures for the most important historic

properties and cultural resources in your community.

Evaluate alternative mitigation actions

using the STAPLEE criteria.

Pages 2-12 through 2-21 of FEMA 386-3, present the

STAPLEE opportunities and constraints of implementing a

particular mitigation action in your community. These are

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

San Francisco City Hall Seismic Retroﬁt

The City Hall of San Francisco, California, completed in

1915, is one of the ﬁnest examples of Beaux-Arts Clas

sical architecture in the United States. The building is a

four-story-plus-basement ofﬁce block of about 516,500

square feet; it covers two city blocks, and its dome is about

300 feet tall. The City Hall is a National Historic Landmark

(NHL) and is located in a NHL District. The building value is

estimated at approximately $430 million with an additional

$40 million in contents; and holds an average 1,460 weekday

occupants.

After being moderately damaged by the Loma Prieta

Earthquake of 1989, FEMA funded temporary and per

manent repairs to the building, and the City and County

of San Francisco (CCSF) used this opportunity to request

additional mitigation funding for the seismic retroﬁt of the

entire City Hall.

The structure was originally designed with a “ﬂexible” ﬁrst

story, intended to dissipate ground movement from an earth

quake before it reached the upper ﬂoors and dome. Now this

type of building is recognized as having a “soft” ﬁrst story,

which is an extreme earthquake hazard.

Because of this, CCSF elected to construct a base isola

tion system for the seismic retroﬁt, which was estimated at

$180 million.

Initially, several seismic retroﬁt schemes were proposed

for the City Hall but some of them would have resulted in

signiﬁcant impact to the historic fabric and/or were extremely

expensive. It was decided that due to the building’s type of

construction, the costs of the project, and the long-term

implications for the City Hall building, a base isolation sys

tem would be the best way to protect the building and its

inhabitants.

The completed base isolation design features 550 isolator

bearings under all steel columns, isolators under new con

crete shear walls on all sides of the light wells, and steel

bracing at the dome, drum, and rotunda below. In addition

to the base isolation system, the completed scope of work

included asbestos removal, improved handicapped acces-

sibility, HVAC upgrades, new telephone/telecommunications

systems, and ﬁre life safety system upgrades. City Hall staff

and functions were relocated for about three years. FEMA

funding for repairs and retroﬁt totaled approximately $121

million.

The City Hall of San Francisco is now protected by the most

advanced seismic retroﬁt solution known today—a solution

that protects both the occupants and historic architecture

of this unique structure.

San Francisco City Hall.

Source: FEMA News Photo

San Francisco City Hall Base Isolation System.

Source: FEMA News Photo

called the STAPLEE evaluation criteria, and your answers

to the questions they generate will help your team narrow

down its list of potential mitigation actions.

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develop a mitigation plan

The STAPLEE Criteria

for Historic Properties

and Cultural Resources

Social: The public must support the

speciﬁc mitigation actions and the overall

implementation strategy. Therefore, the actions

will have to be evaluated in terms of community

acceptance by asking questions such as:

If you avoid mitigation actions that affect

historic properties and cultural resources,

will those properties and resources be at

risk to hazard-related damage?

Will the action have a negative impact on

certain historic properties and cultural

resources? What is the community value

and relative preservation priority of those

resources?

Does the action achieve other important

community goals, such as economic

revitalization?

Your SHPO/THPO, community development

staff, and planning team are key team

members who can help you answer these

questions. Another important resource will

be your ﬁndings from the risk assessment you

conducted in Phase 2.

Technical: It is important to determine if

the proposed action is technically feasible,

has minimal secondary impacts, and will

help to reduce losses in the long term while

preserving the important features of historic

properties and cultural resources. In evaluating

technical feasibility, your team can draw upon

information about historic properties and

cultural resources you gathered earlier, such

as the preservation priority and performance

evaluation. In evaluating the technical aspects



of a mitigation action for historic properties and

cultural resources, you will determine what kind

of solution the action would present—a whole

solution, a partial one, or none. To accomplish

this, you should ask the following questions:

Is the action technically feasible?

Are character-deﬁning historic features

affected? Are secondary impacts minimal?

Does the action address multiple hazards?

Does the action solve a problem, or only a

symptom of a problem?

Will other nearby historic properties

and cultural resources be harmed by

the mitigation action? What are the

preservation priorities and community

values of these resources, relative to each

other?

Key team members who can help answer these

questions include a qualiﬁed preservation

architect and building department staff.

Administrative: Under this part of the

evaluation criteria, you will examine the

anticipated stafﬁng, funding, and maintenance

requirements for the mitigation action. The

results of your examination should determine

if your community has capabilities necessary for

implementing the action or whether outside

help will be necessary.

In evaluating the administrative aspect of a

proposed mitigation action you should ask the

following questions:

Does the action require the input

of specialized historic preservation

professionals? If so, what access do you

have to these professionals? Can you hire a

consultant or use a volunteer or educator?

What are the budgetary implications?

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

If you anticipate that some actions may

have substantial negative affects on historic

properties and cultural resources, does

your jurisdiction’s staff have the time and

training to understand these issues? If your

community is short on staff, what delays

might be anticipated?

Political: Understanding how your current

community and State political leadership feels

about historic preservation issues will provide

valuable insight into the level of political

support you will have for a mitigation action.

Proposed mitigation actions sometimes fail

because of a lack of political acceptability,

particularly when the proposal of these actions

exposes divisions among leaders about the

resources in question. Identifying preservation

hot spots before you have selected an action

alternative will help you identify the feasibility

of implementation.

To gauge the likely level of political support

for your mitigation action, ask yourself the

following questions:

Are there political divisions on the

subject of historic properties? Do the

disagreements center on the evaluation of

historic properties or on perceptions about

the meaning or extent of designation?

Have political leaders participated in the

mitigation planning process for historic

properties to date? Are they properly

informed about the important role

that historic properties can play in the

community?

Is there a local champion willing to help

see the action through to completion?

Does that local champion have a copy

of this how-to guide and an adequate

understanding of historic property and



cultural resource considerations for

mitigation planning?

Are preservation and other community

interests represented in the stakeholder

group? Have all stakeholders been

offered an opportunity to participate in

the planning process? Are they aware of

the degree to which your committee has

evaluated preservation-sensitive mitigation

alternatives?

Legal: Without the appropriate legal authority,

a proposed mitigation action for a historic

property or cultural resource cannot lawfully be

undertaken. When considering this criterion,

you will determine whether your community has

the legal authority at the local, State, or Tribal

level to implement the action, or whether the

jurisdiction must pass new laws or regulations.

Each level of government operates under a

speciﬁc source of delegated authority. As a

general rule, most local governments operate

under enabling legislation that gives them the

power to engage in different activities.

You should identify the unit of government

undertaking the mitigation action, and include

an analysis of the interrelationships between

local, regional, State, Tribal, and Federal

governments. Your SHPO/THPO and local

or regional planning authority can help you

understand the differences between these laws

and regulations regarding historic resources. In

addition, the SHPO/THPO must be consulted

about certain federally sponsored projects

involving historic properties.

Below are some questions you should ask in

evaluating the legal aspects of your proposed

mitigation actions:

Which unit of government would

undertake the mitigation action? What is

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develop a mitigation plan

the extent of Federal involvement (e.g.,

funding and permitting)?

Does the proposed action follow all

applicable preservation laws and

ordinances?

Does the proposed action follow other

State or Federal governmental agency

requirements for which permits may be

required?

Does the proposed action follow

other applicable zoning, ﬂoodplain

management, land use ordinances, and

building code requirements?

Will the community be liable for the action

itself or for failing to undertake action?

Is the action likely to be legally challenged

by stakeholders who take issue with the

negative impacts the action might have?

If so, has your community developed a

dialogue with those stakeholders and

evaluated all potential ways to offset

the negative impacts? If signiﬁcant

disagreement exists, has formal mediation

or alternative dispute resolution been

considered?

Your SHPO/THPO, local or regional planning

authority, and your community’s legal counsel

can help you make the above determinations.

Economic: Every local, State, and Tribal

government experiences budget constraints. In

evaluating the economic aspect of a mitigation

action for historic properties and cultural

resources you must consider both the present

economic base and projected growth. You will

want to closely evaluate mitigation actions that

encourage economic revitalization by preserving

historic properties.



Cost-effective mitigation actions that can be

funded in current or upcoming budget cycles

are much more likely to be implemented than

mitigation actions requiring general obligation

bonds or other instruments that would incur

long-term debt for a community. States and

local communities with limited budgets or

budget shortfalls may be willing to undertake a

mitigation initiative if it can be funded, at least

in part, by external sources. This is why “big

ticket” mitigation actions, such as large-scale

acquisition and relocation, are often considered

for implementation in a post-disaster scenario

when additional Federal and State funding for

mitigation becomes available.

In evaluating the economic criterion of

STAPLEE, you should ask the following

questions about your mitigation action:

Will the action require outside funding?

Can this funding be combined with

existing funds for historic properties and

cultural resources?

Does the action help achieve other

community economic goals, such as capital

improvements or economic development?

Do those economic goals also encourage

preservation of historic properties?

Has your community considered the

potential economic impact if no action

is taken? Will hazard-related damage

discourage economic rehabilitation

projects for historic areas?

Can existing programs such as “Main

Street” downtown revitalization efforts, be

re-focused to relieve the budgetary burden

of the action?

Environmental: The environmental impact

of your proposed mitigation action is an

important consideration because of public

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

desire for sustainable and environmentally

healthy communities and the many statutory

considerations (e.g., NEPA and NHPA). Some

of your alternative actions may harm historic

properties or cultural resources. Examples

include regulatory measures that limit

growth of hazard-prone areas but encourage

abandonment of historic properties, and

measures such as elevation projects that involve

signiﬁcant ground disturbance, which may

damage archeological sites.

The decision to implement a mitigation action

that would adversely affect historic properties

should be made only after a thorough analysis

of other mitigation options and consultation

with a variety of parties, including your

SHPO/THPO, members of the community,

your planning team, and other interested

groups. When such actions must be taken,

you should consider additional measures to

offset, or compensate, the loss or alteration

of the resource. If there is Federal or State

involvement in the mitigation project, you may

be required to evaluate the use of preservation-

sensitive options. This is especially true when

the affected historic property is listed or eligible

for listing in the National Register (see Phase 4,

Consideration 2 for more information on this

requirement).

In evaluating the environmental aspect of a

mitigation action you should ask the following

questions:

Will the action threaten land, water,

wetlands, endangered species, historic

properties eligible for listing in the

National Register, cultural resources, or

other environmental assets?

Are there mitigation action alternatives

that preserve environmental resources

(including historic properties and cultural

resources) while also encouraging

economic growth?



Instructions for Worksheet #7

Worksheet #7: Evaluate Alternative Mitigation Actions

for Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

(see

Appendix C for blank worksheet) will guide you through

your STAPLEE alternatives analysis. Before you begin the

analysis, you should make a copy of this worksheet for each

objective you identiﬁed in Step 1. Write this objective and

its corresponding goal at the top of the worksheet, and

then copy all the alternative actions you identiﬁed for that

objective from the ﬁrst column of Worksheet #6 into the

ﬁrst column of Worksheet #7. You are now ready to begin

your STAPLEE analysis.

This guide covers the STAPLEE criteria as they relate

speciﬁcally to historic properties and cultural resources.

For more information on the general considerations of the

STAPLEE criteria see FEMA 386-3.

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develop a mitigation plan

As you determine the answers to each set of questions/

considerations you develop for each STAPLEE criterion,

you should score each mitigation alternative based on

your answers. You will use Worksheet #7 to accomplish

this scoring. On this worksheet, indicate a plus (+) if the

consideration is favorable, or a minus (-) if the consideration

is not favorable. For considerations that do not apply to the

action, ﬁll in N/A for not applicable. Leave a blank only if

you do not know an answer.

For those considerations left blank, make a note in the

Comments column of the source you should consult to help

you evaluate the consideration.

Evaluate alternative mitigation actions

using beneﬁt-cost analysis (BCA)

BCA is the last type of evaluation addressed in this guide.

For a detailed explanation of how to carry out a BCA,

you are referred to the Mitigation BCA Toolkit CD. This

CD includes all FEMA BCA software, technical manuals,

training courses, and other supporting documentation

to enable you to perform a BCA. For a qualitative beneﬁt

review assessment of mitigation actions, in cases where you

do not have sufﬁcient data to perform a BCA, see FEMA

386-5, Using Beneﬁt-Cost Review in Mitigation Planning.

By performing a BCA, you will bring into your alternatives

analysis the important consideration of cost-effectiveness.

You will attempt to answer the following questions: How

cost-effective is a particular mitigation action or project?

How does the cost of implementation compare to the

amount of damage it would prevent?

To answer these questions, you must have an idea of the

level of risk facing the historic resources for which an action

or project would be implemented, the replacement value

of those resources, and the cost of the action or project.

You have already collected much of this information during

the risk assessment you conducted in Phase 2. Other cost

considerations to remember include the potential loss

of local tax base resulting from alternatives such as the

demolition or relocation of properties.

The end product of your BCA will be a Beneﬁt-Cost

Ratio for each mitigation alternative you have identiﬁed.

A Beneﬁt-Cost Ratio of 1.0 or higher indicates that a

Mitigation

BCA Toolkit

This CD is available free

directly through the BC

Helpline: bchelpline@dhs.gov or

866- 222-3580 (Toll-Free).

Emphasize Costs

and Beneﬁts

DMA 2000 requires that

every community submit

ting a plan prioritize its alternative

mitigation actions with an emphasis

on costs and beneﬁts. A formal beneﬁt-

cost analysis is not mandatory, but an

explanation of the analysis undertaken

and why some actions were chosen

above others is required. If detailed

cost information is not available, a

qualitative analysis will sufﬁce.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

mitigation option is considered cost effective by FEMA (i.e.,

the beneﬁts of preventing hazard-related damage to the

resource are worth the costs of investing in the action).

As you determine the cost-effectiveness of each of your

mitigation options, you should remember that cost-

effectiveness is only one consideration among many that go

into your alternatives analysis. Although BCA is an effective

tool for aiding the alternatives selection process, it should

not be the sole determinant for selecting an alternative.

BCA offers a quantitative way to compare different

alternatives. Less quantiﬁable factors also need to be

considered as you select the most appropriate actions from

among your many alternatives. These include the more

subjective measure of community value and the various

considerations generated by the STAPLEE analysis.

By carefully considering the three methods described in this

document for evaluating mitigation alternatives you can develop

your own decision-making process for selecting mitigation projects.

You have several indicators to balance: the relative preservation

priority, the most relevant questions from the STAPLEE criteria,

and the Beneﬁt-Cost Ratio of the hazard mitigation actions.

Seeking a Proper

Balance

In selecting your mitiga-

tion alternatives you will

want to evaluate a variety of mitigation

actions, including a balance of cost-ef

fective mitigation actions for properties

with a lower preservation priority, and

less intrusive actions for properties

with a higher preservation priority,

which could be more expensive. The

resulting balance will be a cost-effec-

tive project that preserves important

community resources while providing

increased protection from hazard-

related damage. To ﬁnd this balance

you will need to take into account the

overall cost-effectiveness of all the

mitigation actions proposed for your

community. You may want to combine

multiple Beneﬁt-Cost Ratios to provide

an overall average Beneﬁt-Cost Ratio

for the community.

Evaluating Flood Mitigation

Alternatives: The Milton,

Pennsylvania Experience

In Milton, Pennsylvania, the community identiﬁed planning

goals as part of the process for selecting mitigation actions.

Foremost among these goals was to avoid demolition or

relocation of historic properties. In addition, the community

identiﬁed the revitalization and retention of the historic com

mercial downtown neighborhood as a high-priority objective.

Since most of the buildings extended to the lot line and shared

party walls, elevation would be difﬁcult. Therefore various

ﬂood-prooﬁng measures, even the elevation of interior ﬂoors,

were considered the most appropriate alternative.

For Milton the BCA for ﬂood mitigation alternatives yielded

several interesting results. For individual structures the

cost-effectiveness of different hazard mitigation alterna

tives varied little, indicating that the difference between the

cost-effectiveness of acquisition and demolition, and that

of relocation or elevation would be fairly small. Therefore,

future ﬂood-related damage could be mitigated without wide

spread demolition of historic structures. The BCA revealed

that construction of a structural ﬂoodwall/levee would also

be cost-effective. Although they tend to increase the effects

of a ﬂood downstream and cannot absolutely prevent ﬂood

damage, they help protect local industry and infrastructure

from ﬂooding. When the community had previously consid

ered a ﬂoodwall, they found it was too expensive.

Stream channel modiﬁcations, such as dredging or the re

moval of central islands, were not found to be cost-effective.

In addition to environmental impacts and high cost, they

would reduce ﬂood levels by no more than 6 inches.

The community decided that more intrusive, highly cost-

effective projects (such as an elevation project with a

Beneﬁt-Cost Ratio of 1.5) would be evaluated for Milton’s

less historically signiﬁcant structures. Less structure-alter

ing alternatives (such as a ﬂood-prooﬁng project with a

Beneﬁt-Cost Ratio of 0.5) would be used for its highly sig

niﬁcant historic properties. This project balances out some

individual structures with very high Beneﬁt-Cost Ratios for

more intrusive projects, such as elevation, with individual

structures that have a lower Beneﬁt-Cost Ratio for a less

intrusive project, such as ﬂood-prooﬁng. The more intrusive

(and more cost effective) hazard mitigation alternative was

employed for a historic resource that ranked lower on the

preservation hierarchy; the less intrusive project (and less

cost-effective) was employed for a historic resource that

ranked higher on the preservation hierarchy.

Although BCA revealed which hazard mitigation options were

the most cost-effective for each property, it was not the sole

factor in creating multiple-property hazard mitigation actions

in historic Milton.

More information about Milton’s planning process for his

toric ﬂood-prone properties is online at http://www.fema.

gov/ehp/milton.shtm.

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develop a mitigation plan

A Local Success Story

in Wisconsin

Flooding is an ongoing part of life in the rural riv-

erside town of Darlington, Wisconsin, having caused millions

of dollars in property damage over the past decade. Follow-

ing the devastating damage from the 1993 ﬂoods, the town

could follow one of three routes: do nothing and continue to

suffer the periodic rise of the river; move the central business

district out of the ﬂoodplain and upset the local economy and

sense of community; or… do something innovative.

Darlington chose innovation. It found creative solutions to

retain the historic charm of its nineteenth century business

district while eliminating the threat of future ﬂood devasta

tion.

The town took advantage of the very high ceilings common

to many of the older buildings in Darlington; their height

allowed ﬁrst ﬂoors to be elevated out of ﬂood danger with

minimal impact to other historic features. Basements were

ﬁlled with sand and gravel, ﬂoodprooﬁng that portion of the

building most vulnerable to ﬂooding, and all utilities were

upgraded and raised.

All these measures were implemented without altering the

exteriors or disrupting the basic historic integrity of these

older buildings. Additionally, the residential area surround

ing the downtown was relocated and the resulting space

redeveloped as a recreational area, including a campground,

a paved walking trail, and a portion of a regional multi-use

trail.

These innovative techniques resulted in the successful

ﬂoodprooﬁng of the historic central business district against

the 100-year ﬂood event, as well as the revitalization of

Darlington’s local economy.

The successful integration of historic preservation and

hazard mitigation earned Darlington a Preservation

Achievement Award from the State Historical Society of

Wisconsin. More information is available at http://www.fema.

gov/regions/v/ss/ r5_n16.shtm.

Top: Restored and retroﬁtted building.

Middle: To provide additional protection against

ﬂoodwater, removable watertight ﬂoodgates were

incorporated into the buildings.

Bottom: Floodprooﬁng in action in Darlington,

Wisconsin.

Photos courtesy of Vierbiecher Associates

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Remember that you and your team are continuously balancing

multiple community planning goals in your work.

2. Select mitigation actions.

After evaluating the alternative mitigation actions, select those that

are most appropriate for your community. One way to do this is by

reviewing your notes on each action from Worksheets #6 and #7.

Review the comment notes or expand upon them to explain any

special circumstances that must be kept in mind in the next step.

For example, if you found that one action is more effective when

undertaken in conjunction with another, note this fact. See FEMA

386-3, page 2-25, for more information on selecting mitigation

actions.

3. Prioritize selected mitigation actions.

Worksheet #8: Prioritize Alternative Mitigation Actions for Historic

Properties and Cultural Resources

in Appendix C provides a way

to organize your mitigation actions. In this worksheet you will

list the alternative mitigation actions in order of priority, as well

as the goals and objectives they address, and any other relevant

information you might add to your hazard mitigation plan.

You can ﬁnd detailed information about prioritizing mitigation

actions in FEMA 386-3, pages 2-25 through 2-28. In brief, the

following should be considered before you prioritize the selected

actions:

Ease of implementation.

Ability to achieve multiple objectives.

The time needed for implementation.

The possibility of being funded and implemented in a post-

disaster scenario.

See FEMA 386-3, pages 2-23 through 2-25, for more information.

You can use one of two common methods to prioritize actions.

In multi-voting, every team member is given a total number of

votes equal to half the number of total potential actions. If a team

member feels strongly about a particular action, he or she could

vote for it more than once. The action that garners the most votes

becomes the top priority. Another useful prioritizing technique is

numerical ranking. Team members assign a ranking to each action,

with the lowest number being the highest rank. You then add the

ranks given to each action, and the one with the lowest number

is the highest priority. Public input into the planning process can

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develop a mitigation plan

be increased by opening up the prioritization process to a greater

number of participants.

This is the end of Step 2 of Phase 3. Following are questions you

should ask yourself to determine if you have adequately identiﬁed

and prioritized mitigation actions that address historic and

cultural resources for incorporation into your community’s hazard

mitigation plan. These are followed by a Review Test that you

should use as a learning aid to help you become more comfortable

in discussing the relative merits of various hazard mitigation

actions.

Evaluate Your Community

Does your community’s draft mitigation plan contain

any actions that would have a negative impact on historic

properties or cultural resources?

Have you identiﬁed and analyzed State and local mitigation

capabilities?

Review Test (Select one answer for each question.)

STAPLEE criteria are:

Standards for disaster-resistant additions to historic

buildings.

A checklist to use when disaster-prooﬁng historic buildings.

A method of evaluating mitigation actions to ensure that

they fulﬁll your objectives and are appropriate for your

community.

None of the above.

A Beneﬁt-Cost Ratio greater than one indicates that:

The cost of a mitigation action is less than the cost of

damage that would occur without the action (i.e., the

action is cost effective).

The action should automatically be undertaken.

The action should automatically be discarded.

None of the above.

Section 106 is:

A portion of the tax code governing the repair of historic

properties and cultural resources.



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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

The section of the National Historic Preservation Act

requiring the evaluation of ways to avoid, minimize, or

offset negative impacts to historic properties from projects

in which the Federal government is involved (through

funding, permitting, etc.).

A standard way of designating the original rooms of

historic properties from modern additions.

None of the above.

(Answers in Appendix D – Answers to Review Tests.)

Step 3. Prepare an

Implementation Strategy

In Step 3, you will develop the strategies for implementing the

mitigation actions you selected in Step 2. The implementation

strategy identiﬁes who is responsible for which actions, what

funding mechanisms (e.g., grants, capital budget, and in-kind

donations) and other resources are available, and the time frame

for project completion. It is particularly important to focus on

the coordination between the various stakeholders involved in

the efforts, including your SHPO/THPO and other historic

preservationists.

The process is thoroughly addressed in FEMA 386-3, pages 3-

1 through 3-10, and summarized below as it applies to historic

properties and cultural resources.

Procedures and Techniques

Task A. Identify how mitigation

actions will be implemented.

1. Identify parties, deﬁne responsibilities, and conﬁrm partners.

As you move toward implementing mitigation strategies for historic

properties and cultural resources you will want to stay in close

contact with stakeholders who have helped you throughout the

planning process. They will likely have had an important voice

earlier (in the identiﬁcation of important historic properties

and cultural resources, and the evaluation of various mitigation

options) and you should give these groups and individuals an

opportunity to help decide how these actions will take place.

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develop a mitigation plan

Additionally you will want to identify resources that will help

you implement your actions. You can call upon resources within

local, regional, State, or Tribal government agencies, the Federal

government, private sector organizations and businesses, and

academic institutions. Remember to include people who have

expertise in historic properties and cultural resources, including

your SHPO/THPO. Together, your planning group can develop a

realistic schedule for implementing prioritized actions.

2. Identify resources to implement the actions.

Funding Sources. A well-structured hazard mitigation project for

historic properties and cultural resources will take advantage of

funding sources that target not only hazard mitigation projects, but

also a wide variety of other preservation and land-use initiatives.

Please see Appendix B – Library of this guide for a listing of

potential funding sources for your mitigation projects.

Carefully evaluate your prioritized list of actions and identify

projects whose goals address multiple community needs at once

(e.g., affordable housing, recreation, and economic revitalization).

If your hazard mitigation projects address multiple community

planning goals, you may be able to pursue—and combine—several

funding sources. For example, the rehabilitation of a hazard-prone

historic apartment building that includes low-income rental units

may be eligible for funding from a variety of sources, including:

Hazard mitigation funding;

Tax credits for affordable housing;

Tax credits for rehabilitation of income-producing historic

buildings;

Tax credits for elderly housing;

Grants or other incentive programs for commercial downtown

revitalization;

Low-interest revolving loans or grants for the rehabilitation of

historic buildings;

Facade easements;

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) credits and deductions

available to businesses; and

Local planning and zoning incentives.

Other types of historic properties might be eligible for assistance

from other ﬁnancial programs:



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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Grants for historic property surveys and historic preservation

planning;

Grants for conservation and curation of cultural resources

(such as artifacts and archival collections); and

Transportation-related funding for historic buildings (e.g.,

Transportation Equity Act [TEA-21] enhancement program).

In evaluating funding vehicles for your mitigation projects, you

should seek out incentives and partnerships that minimize ﬁnancial

or administrative burdens. For example, States and communities

can provide tax rebates for code upgrades, offer reduced property

taxes and insurance premiums to citizens and businesses taking

steps to lower their exposure to hazards, offer tax incentives for

rehabilitation projects, or provide lower rates for retroﬁt projects.

State Cooperation. Local governments often underestimate

the wealth of resources that their States can provide. States are

excellent sources of funding, support, and technical assistance.

State geological surveys, water resources agencies, and departments

of planning or natural resources often have useful data related to

hazard identiﬁcation and risk assessments. States may also have a

GIS department that can provide data and support. Your SHPO

may provide excellent information and technical expertise. If

agency staff has the time, consider holding an interagency meeting

or conference call early in your project.

Additionally, regional or statewide historic preservation and urban

planning conferences (as well as broad public events, such as

regional fairs) can be excellent opportunities to provide publicity

for your planning efforts.

In-Kind Resources. Federal or State grants for historic properties

and cultural resources often require in-kind matching funds from

local or regional partners. Some grant programs may allow local

communities to provide a match using “in-kind” resources in lieu

of a local ﬁnancial commitment; this in-kind match may include

volunteer time and/or the donation of materials and services

from local professionals. When analyzing the feasibility of in-

kind matches, carefully evaluate how reliable and effective your

volunteers will be in implementing your project.

3. Deﬁne the time frame for implementing the actions.

Task B. Document the implementation strategy.

There are many ways to present the implementation strategy; one

example is contained in the adjacent sidebar.



A Sample

Format for an

Implementation

Strategy Form

Action: (From your list of selected

actions).

Goal(s) and Objective(s) Addressed:

(Sometimes the action will address

more than one goal and objective).

Lead Agency: (Provide the name and

a brief description of the agency).

Support Agency or Agencies:

(Pro-

vide the name and a brief description

of each support agency).

Budget: (Provide the dollar amount

or an estimate, if known; put TBD—to

be determined—if not known; and/or

indicate staff time if applicable).

Funding Source(s): (List the funding

sources—e.g., operating budget, capi

tal improvement budget, XYZ grant,

XYZ foundation, etc.).

Start and End Date: (Indicate start

and end dates; short-term, long-term,

or ongoing; and milestones for longer

term projects).

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develop a mitigation plan

Task C. Obtain the consensus of the planning team.

The planning team should look at the Tribal, State, or local

capability assessment (whichever is applicable) to identify

resources to implement the mitigation actions. The team should

also examine resources from all levels of government, private

sector organizations, and universities to explore many sources of

assistance.

Once the implementation strategy in this step is completed, it

will serve as a roadmap for making the historic properties and

cultural resources of your Tribe, State, or community more disaster

resistant. With the strategy clearly laid out, your planning team has

all the essential elements completed and is ready for the next step.

If your planning team has difﬁculty agreeing on speciﬁc mitigation

actions for historic properties and cultural resources, work together

to retrace your planning process. Examine earlier documents

and notes and try to understand when disagreements started to

arise. Next try to deﬁne speciﬁc points of disagreement. Start by

identifying controversial issues or actions (such as disagreement

about the demolition of a historic building, or the failure to

recognize a speciﬁc historic property or cultural resource as highly

signiﬁcant), then move toward the larger project goals, objectives,

and problem statements connected to those speciﬁc issues.

Your goal should be to ﬁnd common ground. When you are able

to return to the speciﬁc controversial issues or actions, revisit

your preservation hierarchy and examine the feasibility of other

mitigation actions that could also accomplish your shared goals and

objectives. All parties should be willing to compromise in order to

reach consensus. If needed, remind them that the failure to achieve

a consensus will jeopardize the implementation of your plan and

will likely expose your community’s historic properties and cultural

resources to substantial hazard-related damage.

This is the end of Step 3 of Phase 3. Following are questions

you should ask yourself to determine if you have developed an

adequate implementation strategy for incorporation into your

hazard mitigation plan.

Evaluate Your Community

Have you identiﬁed which person, ofﬁce, agency, etc., will

implement each mitigation action?

Have you created timelines and budgets for each action?



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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Have you located funding sources for the mitigation actions?

Review Test (Select one answer for each question.)

Examples of sources of funding to implement your mitigation

actions are:

Hazard mitigation grants from the government and

preservation grants from foundations.

Tax credits and low interest revolving loans.

Economic development loans/grants and housing loans/

grants.

All of the above.

In-kind resources are:

Non-monetary donations such as volunteer time, materials,

and professional services.

Encouraging words offered by passersby when you are

working on a project.

Stone, concrete, steel, and other heavy construction

materials that have to be handled by machine.

None of the above.

If the planning team is having trouble reaching consensus on

speciﬁc mitigation actions, you as a team member can:

Deﬁne speciﬁc points of disagreement.

Hold fast to your own views even in the face of opposition

from other team members.

Find common ground.

a and c.

(Answers in Appendix D – Answers to Review Tests.)

Step 4. Incorporate Historic Property

and Cultural Resource Protection

Efforts into the Hazard Mitigation Plan

You and the team have worked very hard up to this point; now is the

time to pull all the pieces together that pertain to historic properties

and cultural resources and integrate them into the appropriate

sections of the hazard mitigation plan. The importance of protecting



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develop a mitigation plan

historic properties and cultural resources should be clearly written

following the format, terminology, and organization of the hazard

mitigation plan. You should prepare the following sections:

A summary of the planning process itself, including the

sequence of actions taken and a list of team members and

stakeholders who participated;

The results of the risk assessment and loss estimation;

Mitigation goals and objectives aimed at reducing or avoiding

the effects of natural and manmade hazards;

Mitigation actions that will help the Tribe, State, region, or

community accomplish the established goals and objectives;

and

Implementation strategies that detail how the mitigation

actions will be implemented and administered.

Your hazard mitigation plan should be written so that anyone who

reads it can easily gain an understanding of the risks facing historic

properties and cultural resources in the community, as well as the

community’s intended strategies for mitigating those risks.

Detailed guidance for assembling your document is contained in

pages 4-1 through 4-6 of FEMA 386-3.

This is the end of the last step of Phase 3.

Summary

Planning is a continuous process. As you implement the plan you

will be evaluating your progress, learning which actions succeeded

and which did not—and why—and keeping track of changes in

your community that may affect the relevance of your plan. Should

a hazard event strike your community, some parts of your plan

implementation may be suspended while post-disaster actions take

priority. Also note that DMA 2000 regulations require the update

and reapproval of local hazard mitigation plans every 5 years to

be eligible for most FEMA funding. (States and Tribes applying

as grantees must submit their plans for reapproval every 3 years.)

These considerations, and others, are discussed in Phase 4.



phase 4

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implement

the plan

and monitor

progress

Overview

mplementation is the fourth and ﬁnal phase of incorporating

historic property and cultural resource considerations into

the hazard mitigation planning process. The steps associated

with this phase are described in detail in FEMA 386-4, Bringing the

Plan to Life: Implementing the Hazard Mitigation Plan.

Please consult

this guide for basic information on implementing, monitoring,

evaluating, and updating your mitigation plan. A number of

considerations, however, pertain speciﬁcally to historic properties

and cultural resources and form the basis for the remainder of the

discussion:

Consideration 1. Sensitivity of information.

Consideration 2. Required regulatory review.

Consideration 3. Interagency coordination/agreements.

Consideration 4. Evaluating and updating your plan.

Consideration 5. Updating your inventory data.

These considerations are discussed in detail below.

Consideration 1.

Sensitivity of Information

In implementing the mitigation actions identiﬁed by your planning

team in Phase 3, you should remember to include in the mitigation

plan any cautions regarding information deemed sensitive for

public disclosure. For example, disclosing the speciﬁc location

of archeological sites, or details about certain cultural practices

and traditions, or information on security systems used in the

protection of historic properties and cultural resources could be

detrimental and result in the destruction of the very resources your

team is trying to protect.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Damage to archeological sites at the Slack Farm.

Photos courtesy of Kentucky Archaeological Survey

Protecting Sensitive

Locational Data

To avoid illegal removal of historic

and cultural resource assets, it is im

portant to protect speciﬁc locational

data pertaining to archeological sites

and/or suppress the description of a

historic property’s contents in public

documents. However, sometimes

protecting this information may not

be sufﬁcient, as the destruction of

the Slack Farm site in Uniontown,

Kentucky, illustrates.

Archeologists had long known about

the Slack Farm site, which repre

sented an important Native America

Late Mississippian village, a com-

munity of wattle and daub houses

where acres of maize, beans, and

squash grew at the conﬂuence of the Wabash and Ohio

Rivers from AD 1450 to 1650. Although relic hunters had

periodically visited the site to illegally dig for artifacts, the

Slack family had always turned these individuals away. This

changed when Mrs. Slack died. In the late 1980s, the new

owner granted access to looters who paid an excavation fee

of $10,000. With their rented tractors, the looters dug out

graves, scattering bones and Late Mississippian pottery frag-

ments. Today, the disturbed site sits as the looters left it.

NOTE: The desecration and destruction of over 400 graves

at this site helped galvanize a coalition of Native Americans

and archeologists across the United States, who called upon

Congress to enact new legislation to better protect Native

American human remains, funerary objects, and objects of

cultural patrimony. This effort culminated in 1990 with the

passage of the Native American Graves Protection and

Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

While your planning team must make decisions on a case-by-case

basis regarding the release of sensitive information, your team

should always consider the merit of providing such information in

a general manner, i.e., without reference to sensitive details such as

locations, security measures, dollar values, etc.

In the course of your team’s inventory of historic properties and

cultural resources, you may have documented and evaluated

traditional cultural practices of a particular social group; in some

cases, this information relates to spiritual beliefs that are very

personal and sensitive. Your planning team should consult with

social groups that have historic ties to your project area to ensure

that the cultural practices you have learned about during your

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implement the plan and monitor progress

inventory are not inappropriately treated in your hazard mitigation

plan.

Your SHPO/THPO will be able to provide additional guidance

on proper handling of sensitive information. These measures will

help you to avoid unnecessary anxieties about placing your valued

historic properties and cultural resources at further risk.

Consideration 2.

Required Regulatory Review

As noted in Phases 1 and 3 of this guide, a second consideration

that will inﬂuence your planning team’s activities during the

implementation phase is the requirement for compliance with

Section 106 of the NHPA. Any federally sponsored undertaking is

subject to review under Section 106’s implementing regulations,

36 CFR Part 800, “Protection of Historic Properties.” (Federal

sponsorship can take the form of review, permitting, funding, or

other type of involvement.) These regulations require Federal

agencies, along with their State, Tribal, regional, and local partners,

to evaluate ways to avoid, minimize, or compensate for adverse

impacts to historic properties listed, or eligible for listing, in the

National Register. Adverse impacts can, in some cases, be offset by

recordation, archeological data recovery, enhancement of GIS data,

public interpretation and education programs, or remembrance

and symbolic transfer ceremonies.

Public Interpretation and Education

Programs.

Design installations that interpret

and explain historic resources offer one

effective method to offset negative impacts

to historic properties and cultural resources.

These designs can include the following:

Simple plaques and text panels;

Installations and monuments that provide

a creative visual interpretation of historic

properties (Benjamin Franklin’s house,

shown here, is a good example); and

Heritage trails and corridors that link a

neighborhood, city, or region with multiple

historic properties. These may also be used

to enhance existing tourism and park-

related initiatives.



Franklin Court Ghost Frame, Independence NHP,

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Photo courtesy of Independence National Historic Park

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Remembrance and Symbolic Transfer Ceremonies.

Remembrance ceremonies sometimes can be used by

community members to honor the loss of a historic property,

a neighborhood, or an entire community when these

have been demolished or relocated as a result of a hazard

mitigation project. This type of ceremony allows those

affected by the loss to come together to share their grief in a

digniﬁed and appropriate way. Ceremonies such as these also

are a way to mark the anniversary of an event that has touched

many people.



Archeological Site

Documentation in Pennsylvania

In 1999, ﬂooding in Delaware County, Pennsyl-

vania, severely damaged many buildings and

structures, including a signiﬁcant eighteenth-century stone

house. Located next to a stream, this house had already

experienced repeated ﬂood-related damage. After determin

ing that relocating the dwelling would not be feasible due

to its large size and the complex engineering involved, the

owners decided to have the house demolished.

So that future generations could learn about the house and

its history, a detailed archival record was created. The archive

included extensive large-format black and white photography,

measured ﬂoor plans, a detailed written description, and a

narrative history of the site. These materials were placed in

a local repository.

Thus, despite the fact that a signiﬁcant historic property

was demolished, a complete historic record remains for the

beneﬁt of the community.

Left: 18th century stone house before demolition,

Delaware County, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Above: Archeologists excavating and documenting the

Schoonmaker site. Delaware County, Philadelphia.

Photos courtesy of URS Group, Inc., 2001

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Symbolic transfer ceremonies can also help communities

effectively commemorate the loss of one place, while moving

to a new location. In the case of one community that was

relocated due to river valley ﬂooding associated with the

creation of a new reservoir, an extensive number of historic

properties, including sacred sites, were lost. A service was

held on the old site, and then on the new site, symbolically

transferring and maintaining values from one site to the

other.

Before implementing mitigation actions you identiﬁed in Phase

3, it is important that your planning team ofﬁcially communicate

with your SHPO/THPO regarding formal Section 106 compliance.

Section 106 compliance involves conducting an alternatives analysis

in consultation with your SHPO/THPO and other interested

parties, in which different mitigation actions are evaluated for

their ability to minimize impacts to historic properties or cultural

resources. Section 106 regulations also require consultation with

your SHPO/THPO, including providing them the opportunity to

comment on your recommended actions. Failure to secure formal

Section 106 compliance can jeopardize Federal funding, permits,

or approvals, and even prevent project implementation.

If your planning team has carefully followed the recommendations

contained in this planning guide, you will have worked with

your SHPO/THPO when you applied the STAPLEE criteria to

evaluate a variety of alternative actions. If so, your team may have

accomplished much of the work required for complying with

Section 106.

Your team should send a formal letter to your SHPO/THPO

that carefully documents how your team has followed the

recommendations contained in this guide. In writing the letter,

your team should seek input from State and Federal environmental

review staff involved in your planning effort. If the SHPO/

THPO recommends additional work before formal Section 106

compliance can be completed, various sources of information can

help you to reach compliance. These include recommendations

from the SHPO/THPO themselves.

If regulatory review by a SHPO/THPO is required, and your

project involves Federal assistance that will adversely affect

National Register eligible or listed properties, a Memorandum of

Agreement (MOA) between the Federal agency involved and the

SHPO/THPO is required. If your SHPO informs you that an MOA

Section 106

Project Review

Even if your community’s

historic properties are not

listed in the National Register, the

mitigation actions you recommended

in Phase 3 for protecting these prop

erties will nevertheless be subject

to Section 106 review if they will be

funded by Federal (e.g., FEMA) dol-

lars or require Federal permitting.

Federally assisted projects that involve

certain types of historic properties that

are hidden from view, such as buried

archeological sites, are subject to Sec-

tion 106 review due to their potential

signiﬁcance. Before implementation of

mitigation activities that involve ground

disturbance, your community may be

required to make an attempt to locate

these properties.

In addition to Section 106 review, your

projects may also be subject to other

State and local review under State his

toric preservation and/or archeological

laws and regulations.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

is required, it is not your responsibility to negotiate the MOA. You

should speak with the appropriate Federal agency staff, who will

coordinate and conclude the consultation process.

Consideration 3.

Interagency Coordination/Agreements

During implementation, your planning team will want to continue

to coordinate closely with all of the partners with whom it has been

working throughout the planning process. These include your

SHPO/THPO, local or regional planning entities, local building

ofﬁcials, and others who have helped your team to develop its

goals and decide upon mitigation actions up to this point. As you

implement the plan, your team may discover other interested

parties and groups with historic ties to your planning area who may

not have been involved in the earlier planning activities. Although

it is preferable to have included these parties on your team before

the implementation phase, it is important that your team open up

its planning process to include these new sources of input, even if it

means your planning team must revisit earlier decisions.

It is a good idea to prepare an interagency agreement between

or among the involved agencies. Interagency agreements allow

for the streamlining of regulatory review by providing a formal

framework for integrating planning activities that are required

by both the hazard mitigation planning process and Section 106

review. Redundancies are thus eliminated. For example, public

input that is required during both of these processes is useful

for gathering information on what mitigation alternatives are

supported by the community and stand a better chance of being

implemented. Moreover, an interagency agreement can expedite

much of the Section 106 review work required if local, State, or

Tribal agencies involved in the general mitigation planning process

have or hire qualiﬁed individuals to perform the review of the

various mitigation projects your team has proposed. These staff or

consultants could include archeologists, historians, or preservation

planners.

Interagency agreements also provide an opportunity for

formalizing the implementation of actions that minimize or

compensate for impacts to historic properties and cultural

resources, including spelling out the procedures to follow to

balance historic preservation and mitigation needs.

The Need for

Interagency

Agreements

Your SHPO/THPO, as well

as your funding agency, can help you

evaluate when the use of an interagen

cy agreement is most appropriate.

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If your team chooses not to undertake a formal interagency

agreement, there are many other ways in which you can encourage

interagency cooperation. Just as your team has pulled together a

multitude of interests to advise on mitigation planning for historic

properties and cultural resources, you can continue to engage

these interests throughout the implementation process. Activities

in which you can interact with those who can inform and guide

the implementation process include attendance or speaking

engagements at seminars, brown bag lunches, or conferences about

historic properties and cultural resource preservation or hazard

mitigation planning. Regularly scheduled progress meetings are

also beneﬁcial.

By participating in such interagency activities, you will also be able

to share your experiences with others facing similar collaborative

challenges.

Consideration 4.

Evaluating and Updating your Plan

In implementing your hazard mitigation plan, your team will

likely learn something new about your community’s historic

properties and cultural resources. This may include clariﬁcation

on preservation priorities, new intelligence about governmental

provisions for protecting these resources, differing perspectives

on mitigation as embodied in other parts of the hazard mitigation

plan, and, as mentioned above, what is truly effective or ineffective

for mitigating damage to certain properties and resources.

For those projects whose implementation was not guided by the

Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties,

your planning team should carefully document the reasons why

those standards were not used, and evaluate alternative actions

that would employ these standards. You should also extend such

planning to properties and resources that are similar to the ones

targeted by these projects.

In the case of certain cultural resources, such as archives and

collections, your team may wish to obtain feedback from a variety of

professionals, including curators, as to their perceived effectiveness

of mitigation efforts. Gathering speciﬁc information about the

costs and successes of these efforts may be useful in your plan

update. This information may also be useful to others who are

contemplating development of mitigation plans with signiﬁcant

cultural resource collections and assets.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Your team will likely gain new knowledge about how your historic

properties and cultural resources are viewed or administered. This

new knowledge may include the introduction or revision of a State

tax incentive for the rehabilitation of historic properties, which

may provide additional opportunities for private developers not

factored into your original plan. Socioeconomic changes may also

transform the hierarchy of preservation priorities, so that certain

priorities either become more pressing or lose some of their value.

This, in turn, will inﬂuence the order in which implementation of

mitigation actions should proceed. Shifts in development patterns

that occur subsequent to the initial development of your plan

may also have a dramatic impact on preservation priorities. For

example, a recently suburbanized region may ﬁnd that historic

farmsteads, once plentiful, have become increasingly scarce and

may seek to adjust its preservation priorities accordingly.

New technologies and new study data on historic properties and

cultural resources may emerge during the course of implementing

your plan. For example, newly developed regional archeological

predictive models—not available when your plan was created—

could assist in the identiﬁcation and evaluation of this speciﬁc type

of historic property. Your planning team may also identify new

types of mitigation methods that result in better beneﬁts for your

community.

Armed with this new knowledge, your planning team will want to

reassess its goals, objectives, and actions to determine the extent to

which they are still applicable.

Updating the Plan

After your planning team has evaluated implementation

actions and identiﬁed new information that can affect future

implementation strategies, you are ready to update the plan.

Depending on the extent of the required changes, you may need to

reformulate speciﬁc actions, objectives, or even goals.

In deciding on revisions, your planning team should draw upon

the same consensus-driven prioritization methods it used earlier in

the planning process, ﬁrst and foremost being solicitation of public

input. These methods are explained in greater detail earlier in

this guide as well as in the other FEMA how-to guides mentioned

throughout this document.

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implement the plan and monitor progress

Post-Disaster Recovery

An important part of your community’s post-disas-

ter response and recovery effort will be ensuring

that historic property and cultural resource con

siderations are taken into account after a disaster, just as

they were accounted for in the mitigation planning before the

disaster. Your hazard mitigation planning team should work

with the larger disaster response and recovery team, which,

depending upon the extent of the disaster, may include

FEMA, State, county, and local agencies to ensure that they

are made aware of the major components of your mitigation

plan for historic properties and cultural resources. Moreover,

the locational data—particularly the GIS data—that you

have amassed during your inventory of historic properties

and cultural resources may prove to be extremely helpful

to emergency response planners as they attempt to make

important decisions about which historic properties it would

be worthwhile to repair.

The post-disaster rehabilitation period offers an opportunity

to acquire funding, through such programs as FEMA’s Public

Assistance Program, in the case of Presidentially declared

disasters, that would not be available otherwise. With this

infusion of funds, historic properties can be adaptively

reused to meet larger community goals, including tourism

development or heritage education.

After a disaster event, some segments of the community

may want to act quickly and demolish damaged buildings

in order to show that progress is being made. This position

can create conﬂict with others and the situation grows more

complicated if the buildings are located in a minority neigh

borhood where residents have little voice in the decisions.

Therefore, it is imperative that different community interests

work together following a disaster event to make important

decisions regarding historic properties.

Following a disaster, some community members may wish

to erase any visible evidence associated with hazard-related

damage. For example, damaged historic properties that are

good candidates for repair may be needlessly targeted for

demolition. On the other hand, some community members

may be unwilling to part with historic properties that are

so extensively damaged that their repair and rehabilitation

would not justify the costs involved. Thus, your team may ﬁnd

itself encountering many of the same prioritization issues

it experienced during the earlier phases of the mitigation

planning process.

A State Success

Story

Disaster Planning for Flor-

ida’s Historic Resources,

prepared by the Florida Department

of Community Affairs with assistance

from the Florida Division of Historic

Resources and 1000 Friends of Florida,

describes steps for preparing emer-

gency response plans for individual

historic resources, expediting review

of repair and reconstruction permits

in the event of damage, and improv

ing coordination between emergency

management and historic preservation

efforts within a community in order to

reduce disaster-related damage and

rebuild local economies. This guide is

available at http://www.dca.state.ﬂ.us/

fdcp/dcp/publications/historic.pdf.

Send Your Updated Survey to Your SHPO

Make sure you send a copy of your updated historic property sur-

veys to your SHPO ofﬁce for review/approval and/or inclusion in the

State database. Determinations included in SHPO databases can

be shared with FEMA and used more readily (in the event of multi-agency

consultations) than local surveys not approved by your SHPO. Local surveys

may also disappear or not be available in the event of a disaster.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

The Effect of Changing

Perceptions on Your Inventory

Perceptions of which historic properties and cul-

tural resources are signiﬁcant can also change

over time, and will affect your inventory. For example, a

suburban neighborhood constructed after World War II, such

as Levittown, may once have been regarded as ordinary,

but now it has taken on a new level of signiﬁcance. The ac-

companying photographs and information are illustrative of

these “near history” resources.

Arapahoe Acres, Englewood, Colorado. Built between

1949 and 1957, this 33-acre postwar subdivision reﬂects

the vision of developer-architect Edward Hawkins and site

planner-architect Eugene Sternberg for a community of

moderately priced small houses using modern principles of

design. Breaking the ubiquitous grid of metropolitan Den

ver, the plan is distinctive for its curvilinear arrangement of

streets, placement of houses on small uniformly sized lots to

provide both views and privacy, and integration of landscape

features, such as lawns, fences, hedges, shrubbery, and

specimen trees, to organize space and give the landscape

a ﬂowing, sculptural quality.

Photographs of Arapahoe Acres are in a National Register

publication entitled Historic Residential Suburbs: Guidelines

for Evaluation and Documentation for the Nation Register of

Historic Places (David Ames and Linda McClelland, 2002).

You can download this publication from http://www.cr.nps.

gov/nr/publications/bulletins/suburbs/intro.htm or http://www.

cr.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/suburbs/part2.htm for

more information on how suburbs—even some built after

World War II—can be nominated for listing in the National

Arapahoe Acres streetscape ca. 1950s.

Barbara Frison

1949 aerial view of Arapahoe Acres.

Collection of Clyde Mannon

Consideration 5.

Updating Your Inventory Data

As your team evaluates the implementation of your mitigation plan

for historic properties and cultural resources you will also want to

develop a strategy for revising and updating your inventory data

based on your evaluation results.

Although some level of update should occur at least every 10

years, certain circumstances, such as a surge in population growth

or a serious disaster event, may warrant more frequent updates

of inventory information. It may be worthwhile to update the

inventory when the hazard mitigation plan itself must be updated:

every 3 years for State plans and 5 years for local plans, if not

before.

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implement the plan and monitor progress

Make Sure Your Data is Up-To-Date

Update your inventory data to reﬂect loss of historic buildings and

structures.

Photo courtesy of 1000 Friends of Florida

Some historic properties may have been demolished since

the inventory was last updated or other properties may have

experienced a loss or gain of integrity as a result of alterations. Your

cultural resources may have changed over time as well. Archives of

important information may have been acquired by an institution

or museum. This type of new information is essential to include in

updates of the inventory and plan.

Lastly, other planning data may have been revised, which may

have an impact on your historic properties and cultural resources

inventory. For example, expansion of ﬂoodplain boundaries,

whether due to more detailed study or actual infrastructure

projects, should be integrated into your inventory. Such changes

would affect not only your inventory, but your risk assessment of

historic properties and cultural resources.

As part of your implementation process, your team will want to

develop a strategy for updating your information about historic

properties and cultural resources. Other planning initiatives may

also be in need of updated information. Your local or regional

planning ofﬁce and SHPO/THPO may help your team identify

potential resources and/or other planning groups in need

of updated information. Consider the advantages of sharing

information, resources, and costs with other project partners.

Windshield

Surveys

If your community has a

large number of historic

properties and cultural resources, or

your team lacks the resources to un

dertake a detailed update of your entire

inventory, your team should consider

alternate methodologies for updating

the inventory. These include a baseline

windshield survey (see page 2-15),

which uses representative concentra-

tions of historic properties and cultural

resources, or a phased approach, in

which highest-priority resources are

updated ﬁrst.

afterword

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our planning team has accomplished a challenging and

worthwhile task—integrating historic property and cultural

resource considerations into the hazard mitigation plan.

Following the four-phase planning process for hazard mitigation

planning, as discussed in the core four guides of this how-to

series, you gathered the necessary resources and enhanced the

planning team to include experts and interested

citizens to help you identify the historic properties

and cultural resources in your Tribe, State, or

community that are vulnerable to hazards. With

the help of this guide, you were able to develop

a preservation hierarchy that you then used to

estimate losses as part of the last step in preparing

your risk assessment. Based on this loss estimate,

you identiﬁed hazard mitigation actions and an

implementation strategy that will allow your Tribe,

State, or community to build upon its unique

sense of place while reducing risks from hazard

events and positioning historic properties and cultural resources

as economic building blocks for future development. As you

obtain additional resources, you will be able to reﬁne your historic

property and cultural resource inventory and risk assessment data,

updating this information as required by DMA 2000 for review and

approval to continue your eligibility for FEMA-funded pre- and

post-disaster programs.

Now with your hazard mitigation plan in hand, your Tribe, State, or

local community can access non-traditional technical and ﬁnancial

resources, opening up new possibilities for effective preservation of

neighborhoods, properties, and artifacts. Because of your planning

team’s efforts, future generations will experience a safer future

while your Tribe, State, or community retains its valuable heritage

and cultural assets, all of which help create its unique sense of

place.

afterword

appendices

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appendix a

glossary

36 CFR Part 800

The Federal Regulations of the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation (ACHP), Protection

of Historic Properties, that govern the Section 106 process of the National Historic Preservation

Act (NHPA). These regulations were amended on August 5, 2004.

ABK Methodology for Seismic-Prone Buildings

An engineering design methodology for unreinforced masonry buildings developed by a

team of engineers in Los Angeles. This methodology ﬁnds that masonry buildings respond

differently from the way traditional codes and engineering approaches have assumed. Rather

than amplifying the forces of an earthquake, heavy masonry-walled buildings have the effect

of dampening the shaking by acting as a “rigid rocking block on a soft soil base.” Using the

ABK Methodology, the computed force levels in an unreinforced masonry building are lower

than found under conventional code analysis, and as such the amount of strengthening

work required for such buildings is less than that needed when conventional code analysis is

employed. Thus, this approach reduces retroﬁt intervention and costs.

Adverse Effect

Harm to historic properties directly or indirectly caused by a Federal agency’s action. The

adverse effect may diminish the integrity of the property’s location, design, setting, materials,

workmanship, feeling, or association. The regulations that set forth the adverse effect criteria

are located in 36 CFR §800.5.

Advisory Council for Historic Preservation (ACHP)

An independent Federal agency composed of a 19-member council that advises the President

and Congress on historic preservation issues and administers the provisions of Section 106 of

the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).

Area of Potential Effects (APE)

The geographic area or areas within which an undertaking may cause changes in the

character or use of historic properties, if any such properties exist. This area always includes

the actual site of the undertaking, and may also include other areas where the undertaking

will cause changes in land use, trafﬁc patterns, or other aspects that could affect historic

properties.

Certiﬁed Local Government

Local governments strengthen their local historic preservation efforts by achieving Certiﬁed

Local Government (CLG) status from the National Park Service (NPS). NPS and State

governments, through their State Historic Preservation Ofﬁcers (SHPOs), provide technical

assistance and small matching grants to these communities. In turn, NPS and States gain

the beneﬁt of local government partnership in the national historic preservation program.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Another incentive for participating in the CLG program is the pool of matching grant funds

SHPOs set aside to fund CLG historic preservation subgrant projects—at least 10% of the

State’s annual Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) grant allocation. Grant funds are distributed

through the HPF grant program, administered by NPS and SHPOs.

Projects eligible for funding and the criteria used to select them are developed annually by

the SHPO. Funding decisions are made by the State, not NPS. Among the kinds of activities

funded are the following: architectural, historical, and archeological surveys; oral histories;

nominations to the National Register; staff work for historic preservation commissions; design

guidelines and preservation plans; public outreach materials such as publications, videos,

exhibits, and brochures; training for commission members and staff; and rehabilitation or

restoration of National Register listed properties.

Comprehensive Planning

A process of developing broad plans that express community goals and objectives.

Comprehensive plans are decision-making tools that establish broad, long-range policy

guidelines for decisions relating to the development of a community. Comprehensive plans

generally include three topics: 1) an inventory of existing conditions; 2) a statement of needs

and goals; and 3) implementation strategies and timeframes. Communities often incorporate

a series of elements, such as population, land use, economic development, transportation,

natural and historic resources conservation, community facilities/services, and housing into

such plans. This process addresses multiple facets of a community and integrates these into a

coherent vision that guides orderly growth and development for the future.

Concurring Party

Organizations, groups, or individuals who are consulted as part of the Section 106 process

and who agree with the consensus of the consulting parties on the method to be used to

resolve the adverse effects of a Federal undertaking. Although concurring parties may sign an

agreement, they cannot amend or terminate it.

Consulting Party

Organizations, groups, or individuals who have consultative roles in the Section 106 process.

According to 36 CFR Part 800, any of the following may be a consulting party: State Historic

Preservation Ofﬁcers/Tribal Historic Preservation Ofﬁcers (SHPO/THPOs); Indian Tribes

and Native Hawaiian organizations; representatives from local governments; applicants for

Federal assistance; the public or other individuals or organizations with a legal or economic

relation to the undertaking or a demonstrated interest in the undertaking’s effects on historic

properties.

Contributing Property

A building, site, structure, or object that adds to the historic associations, historic architectural

qualities, or archeological values for which a historic district is signiﬁcant because it: was

present during the period of signiﬁcance; relates to the documented signiﬁcance of the

property and possesses historic integrity or is capable of yielding important information about

the period; or independently meets National Register criteria.

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appendix a – glossary

Criteria Considerations

Under the four Criteria for Evaluation of National Register eligibility, cemeteries, birthplaces,

or graves of historical ﬁgures; properties owned by religious institutions or used for religious

purposes; structures that have been moved from their original locations; reconstructed

historic buildings; properties primarily commemorative in nature; and properties that have

achieved signiﬁcance in the past 50 years shall not be considered eligible for the National

that do qualify or fall into certain special categories. For a description of these categories, see

National Register Bulletin #15, How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation.

Criteria for Evaluation

The nomination process for the National Register identiﬁes four criteria that describe how

properties are signiﬁcant for their associations with important events or persons, for their

importance in design or construction, or for their information potential. In order to be listed

in the National Register, a property must be shown to be signiﬁcant for one or more of the

four Criteria for Evaluation.

Criterion A Events: Properties can be eligible for the National Register if they are associated

with events that have made a signiﬁcant contribution to the broad patterns of our

history.

Criterion B Person: Properties can be eligible for the National Register if they are

associated with the lives of persons signiﬁcant in our past.

Criterion C Design/Construction: Properties can be eligible for the National Register if they

embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction;

represent the work of a master; possess high artistic values; or represent a signiﬁcant and

distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction.

Criterion D Information Potential: Properties can be eligible for the National Register if they

have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.

Cultural Resource

Non-living examples of objects acquired and preserved because of their potential value as

examples, reference material, or objects of artistic, historic, scientiﬁc, educational, or social

importance, either individually or as a collection. Often housed in libraries, museums,

archives, historical repositories, or historic properties, these resources range from three-

dimensional examples such as sculptures, historic furnishings or textiles, to two-dimensional

examples such as family records, old photographs and maps, and other archival materials.

Curation

A treatment used by Federal agencies to avoid, minimize, or offset the adverse effects of a

Federal action on historic properties. This measure removes certain features or architectural

elements from a property for re-use or permanent curation at a museum or other facility. This

also involves treatment of artifacts that result from archeological surveys.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Data Recovery

A treatment used by Federal agencies to avoid, minimize, or offset the adverse effects of a

Federal action on historic properties. This measure, which obtains and recovers information

about the historic property, speciﬁcally pertains to archeological sites adversely impacted by a

FEMA undertaking. As a result of 2001 revisions to the Section 106 regulations, new guidance

has been issued by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) on the treatment

of historic and prehistoric archeological resources. When a federally assisted project may

affect one or more archeological sites listed, or eligible for listing, in the National Register,

Federal agencies must consider the impacts to such sites. Appropriate treatments may include

preservation in place for future study or use, recovery or partial recovery of archeological

data, or any combination of these other measures.

Determination of Eligibility

Under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), properties that are either listed in, or

eligible for listing in the National Register, trigger Federal review under Section 106. Eligible

historic properties meet one or more of the National Register Criteria for Evaluation and may

be nominated to the National Register at a future date. If a property is not listed or previously

determined eligible for listing in the National Register prior to the FEMA undertaking, FEMA

must make a determination of eligibility for the property.

Displacement Cost

The expense for a business or service to be relocated to another structure because of a hazard

event. This cost can include the rent for temporary building space per month and a one-time

cost to set up operations in the new place.

Displacement Time

The number of days a business or service would operate away from its original location due to

a hazard event.

Evaluation

The process by which the signiﬁcance and integrity of a historic property are judged and

eligibility for National Register listing is determined.

Federal Preservation Ofﬁcer (FPO)

Ofﬁcial designated by the head of each Federal agency to be responsible for coordinating the

agency’s activities under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).

Federal Undertaking

Serving as the trigger for the Section 106 review under the National Historic Preservation

Act (NHPA), an undertaking is any Federal project, activity, or program that involves the

expenditure of Federal money and can result in changes in the character or use of historic

properties. The project, activity, or program must be under the direct or indirect jurisdiction

of a Federal agency or licensed or assisted by a Federal agency. These activities may include

construction, rehabilitation and repair projects, demolition, licenses, permits, loans, loan

guarantees, grants, Federal property transfers, and many other types of Federal involvement.

NOTE: One technical amendment to 36 CFR Part 800, which became effective on August 5,

2004, clariﬁed that the Section 106 process does not apply to undertakings that are merely

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appendix a – glossary

subject to State or local regulation administered pursuant to a delegation or approval by a

Federal agency. This clariﬁcation was made in a revision to the deﬁnition of “undertaking”

under §800.16(y).

Floodplain

As deﬁned under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), any land area susceptible to

being inundated by water from any source.

Floodway

As deﬁned under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the channel of a river or

other watercourse and the adjacent land areas that must be reserved in order to discharge the

base ﬂood without cumulatively increasing the water surface elevation more than a certain

height.

Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM)

Map of a community, prepared by FEMA, that shows both the special ﬂood hazard areas and

the risk premium zones applicable to the community.

Functional Downtime

The number of days that a business would be closed due to damage from a hazard event

before it could resume in another location.

Geographic Information System (GIS)

A computer system for capturing, storing, checking, integrating, manipulating, analyzing,

and displaying data related to positions on the Earth’s surface. Typically, a GIS is used for

handling maps of one kind or another. These might be represented as several different layers

where each layer holds data about a particular kind of feature. Each feature is linked to a

position on the graphical image of a map. GIS is becoming an important tool in promoting

coordinated efforts between emergency management and historic preservation.

Goals

General guidelines that explain what you want to achieve. They are usually broad policy

statements and represent long-term, global visions.

HABS/HAER

The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) is the oldest Federal preservation program.

Established in 1933 by the National Park Service (NPS) as a make work program for jobless

architects and photographers in the Depression, the program’s mission is to create a lasting

archive of American historic architecture. In 1969, the Historic American Engineering

Record (HAER) began as a companion program to document structures of technological

and engineering signiﬁcance. The program established qualitative standards for both

architectural and photographic documentation and it directs the placement of the archives

in the Library of Congress. FEMA often applies these standards when using recordation as a

treatment measure.

Hazard Mitigation

Sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk to human life and property

from natural hazards and their effects. Note that this emphasis on long-term risk distinguishes

mitigation from actions geared primarily to emergency preparedness and short-term recovery.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Hazard Mitigation Actions

Speciﬁc actions that help you achieve your hazard mitigation goals and objectives.

Hazard Mitigation Plan

A systematic evaluation of the nature and extent of vulnerability to the effects of natural

hazards typically present in the planning area and includes a description of actions to

minimize future vulnerability to hazards.

HAZUS

FEMA’s nationally applicable standardized methodology and risk assessment software

program for analyzing potential losses from ﬂoods, hurricane winds, and earthquakes. In

HAZUS-MH, current scientiﬁc and engineering knowledge is coupled with the latest GIS

technology to produce estimates of hazard-related damage before or after a disaster occurs.

Historic Context

Information about historic trends and properties grouped by an important theme in the

prehistory or history of a community, State, or the nation during a particular period of

time. Organized by theme, place, and time, they provide a framework for determining the

signiﬁcance of a property and its eligibility for National Register listing.

Historic District

A historic district is a National Register (or often State and local) designation referring

to either historic properties having a number of resources that are relatively equal in

importance, such as a neighborhood, or large acreage properties with a variety of historic

properties.

Historic Preservation

An approach to conserving structures, sites, and objects that represent a physical connection

with people and events from our past. Historic preservation utilizes various land use planning

strategies, governmental programs, and ﬁnancial incentives to protect historic resources. The

preservation of historic structures and sites helps to create a unique environment and sense of

place.

Historic Preservation Specialist

Historic Preservation Specialists are technical experts who identify and evaluate historic

properties, apply the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and Guidelines to proposed

projects, and negotiate and draft agreement documents. They may work with FEMA program

staff, other specialists, the applicant, and staff of the State Historic Preservation Ofﬁce/Tribal

Historic Preservation Ofﬁce to bring a scope of work into conformance with the Standards or

Guidelines.

Historic Property

As deﬁned by 36 CFR Part 800, means any prehistoric or historic district, site, building,

structure, or object included in, or eligible for inclusion in, the National Register maintained

by the Secretary of the Interior. This term includes artifacts, records, and remains that are

related to and located within such properties. The term includes properties of traditional

religions and cultural importance to an Indian Tribe or Native Hawaiian organization and

that meet the National Register criteria (Source: 36 CFR §800.16 [I][1]).

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appendix a – glossary

Historic Property Survey

A survey of historic properties in a State, which usually involves the collection of background

research on each property, ﬁeldwork that includes photographic and architectural

documentation of the property and a written description of the property, and the reporting of

this information. The survey is normally conducted as part of the State Inventory of Historic

Properties.

Historic Review

The Federal process of taking into account whether a Federal action will have an effect on any

property included in or eligible for the National Register. Historic Review is synonymous with

Section 106 review.

Identiﬁcation

Process through which information is gathered about historic properties in an undertaking’s

Area of Potential Effects (APE) in order to identify the National Register Evaluation Criteria

and determine eligibility for their listing on the National Register. This is one of the ﬁrst, and

most important, initial steps in the Section 106 review process (§800.4[b]).

Indian Tribe

An Indian Tribe, band, nation, or other organized group or community, including a native

village, regional corporation, or village corporation, as those terms are deﬁned in Section 3 of

the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C. 1602), which is recognized as eligible for

the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their

status as Indians (Source: 36 CFR Part 800).

In-Kind Repair

Work that returns a facility to its pre-disaster condition and substantially matches the original

form, workmanship, and materials.

Integrity

The authenticity of a property’s historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical

characteristics that existed during the property’s prehistoric or historic period. Historic

integrity is the composite of seven qualities, including location, design, setting, materials,

workmanship, feeling, and association. It is an important qualiﬁcation for National Register

listing.

Keeper of the National Register

The person at the National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the National

Locally Designated Historic Properties

Historic properties nominated for ofﬁcial designation at the local level through a historic

preservation ordinance or a local preservation/historical organization.

Loss Estimation Table

Projects the losses likely to be sustained due to a speciﬁc type of hazard event (e.g., ﬂoods)

based on observed past damages. Estimated losses are provided for different magnitudes of

the hazard and are expressed as a percentage of replacement cost.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)

An agreement, resulting from consultation, that outlines measures Federal agencies will

take to avoid, reduce, or offset the effects on historic properties as the agency carries out

its undertaking. The MOA is signed by the agency, the State Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer/

Tribal Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer, and the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation, if

participating. Other consulting parties assigned responsibilities in the Agreement must also

be signatories.

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

Signed into law by President Nixon in 1969, the National Environmental Policy Act establishes

the broad national framework for protecting the environment, including historic properties.

NEPA’s basic policy is to ensure that all branches of government give proper consideration to

the environment prior to undertaking any major Federal action that signiﬁcantly affects the

environment. In general, this law established a national policy which would 1) “encourage

productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment”; 2) promote efforts

which would “prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate

the health and welfare of man”; and 3) “enrich the understanding of the ecological systems

and natural resources important to the Nation.”

The NEPA process subsumes the review of proposed actions under an array of other Federal

laws. In regard to historic properties, the most signiﬁcant Federal law is the National Historic

Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA – see below). To achieve improved project streamlining,

NEPA and NHPA requirements are sometimes combined. The Advisory Council for Historic

Preservation’s (ACHP) regulations that implement Section 106 of NHPA, 36 CFR Part 800,

allow Federal agencies to coordinate the two processes. Guidance may be found under

§800.8(a).

National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)

Federal program created by Congress in 1968 that makes ﬂood insurance available in

communities that enact minimum ﬂoodplain management regulations as indicated in 44 CFR

§60.3.

National Historic Landmark (NHL)

Districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects found to possess national signiﬁcance in

illustrating or representing the prehistory and history of the United States. Designated by the

Secretary of the Interior, NHLs comprise less than four percent of the properties listed in the

National Register. Section 110(f) of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and 36

CFR §800.10 outline special requirements for undertakings affecting NHLs.

National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA)

In response to the rapid loss of historic resources from urban renewal in the 1950s and 60s,

Congress passed this Act in 1966 to ensure that Federal agencies integrate historic properties

in their project planning and execution, and encourage States to begin their own historic

preservation programs. The primary components of the NHPA are: adoption of the National

Historic Preservation (ACHP) and State Historic Preservation Ofﬁces; requirement of Federal

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appendix a – glossary

agencies to establish historic preservation programs, designation of a Federal Preservation

Ofﬁcer, and consideration of the effects of Federal undertakings on historic properties.

National Park Service (NPS)

Responsible for performing many of the responsibilities speciﬁcally vested in the Secretary

of the Interior under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). NPS maintains a large

cultural resources professional staff with expertise in the broad range of historic preservation

activities authorized under the NHPA.

National Register of Historic Places (National Register)

The national list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects signiﬁcant in American

history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture, maintained by the Secretary of the

Interior under authority of Section 101(a)(1)(A) of the National Historic Preservation Act

(NHPA).

Natural Resource Protection Actions

Actions that, in addition to minimizing hazards, also preserve or restore the functions of

natural systems. Some natural resources either are historic properties in themselves or

contribute to an understanding of historic properties. Such types of mitigation actions

include sediment and erosion control, stream corridor restoration, watershed management,

forest and vegetation management, and wetland restoration and preservation.

Non-Contributing Property

A building, site, structure, or object that does not add to the historic associations, historic

architectural qualities, or archeological values for which a historic district is signiﬁcant

because it: was not present during the period of signiﬁcance; does not relate to the

documented signiﬁcance of the property and does not possess historic integrity or is not

capable of yielding important information about the period; or, it does not independently

meet National Register criteria.

Objectives

Deﬁne strategies or implementation steps for attaining the identiﬁed goals. Unlike goals,

objectives are speciﬁc and measurable.

Planning

The act or process of making or carrying out plans; the establishment of goals, policies, and

procedures for a social or economic unit.

Planning for Post-Disaster Reconstruction

The process of planning (preferably prior to an actual disaster) those steps the community

will take to implement long-term reconstruction with one of the primary goals being to

reduce or minimize its vulnerability to future disasters. These steps can include a wide variety

of land-use planning tools, such as acquisition, design review, zoning, and subdivision review

procedures. It can also involve coordination with other types of plans and agencies but is

distinct from planning for emergency operations, such as the restoration of utility service and

basic infrastructure.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) Program

A FEMA program to provide technical and ﬁnancial assistance to States and local

governments to assist in the implementation of pre-disaster hazard mitigation actions. These

measures must be cost-effective and designed to reduce injuries, loss of life, and damage

and destruction of property, including damage to critical services and facilities under the

jurisdiction of the States or local governments.

Prehistoric

A term that refers to the period prior to recorded history. In American society, prehistoric

refers to the period prior to the arrival of Europeans in the New World because few

documents or records exist to supplement any physical evidence that may exist.

Preservation

A treatment to a historic property which is speciﬁcally the act or process of applying measures

to sustain the existing form, integrity and material of a building or structure, and the existing

form or vegetative cover of a site. It may include initial stabilization work, where necessary, as

well as ongoing maintenance of the historic building materials.

Professional Qualiﬁcation Standards

Criteria set forth in the Secretary’s Standards (48 FR 44739) and 36 CFR Part 61 Appendix

A that deﬁne minimum education and experience required to perform identiﬁcation,

evaluation, registration, and treatment activities associated with historic properties.

Programmatic Agreement

An agreement that deﬁnes the roles and responsibilities of Federal and State/Tribal

partners and streamlines the Section 106 historic review process. The Programmatic

Agreement is typically developed for a large or complex project or a class of undertakings

that would otherwise require numerous individual requests for Advisory Council for Historic

Preservation (ACHP) comments under Section 106. Under the National Historic Preservation

Act (NHPA), the Programmatic Agreement replaces the Section 106 process outlined in 36

CFR Part 800.

Protection

A treatment to a historic property, which is speciﬁcally the act or process of applying measures

designed to affect the physical condition of a property by defending or guarding it from

deterioration, loss, or attack, or to cover or shield the property from danger or injury. In

the case of buildings or structures, such treatment is generally of a temporary nature and

anticipates future historic preservation treatment; in the case of archeological sites, the

protective measure may be temporary or permanent.

Public Assistance (PA) Program

A FEMA program that provides grants to State and local governments, Tribal organizations,

eligible private non-proﬁt organizations, and other public entities for losses sustained in

disasters and other related needs. Eligible projects include debris removal, emergency

protective measures, and permanent restoration.

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appendix a – glossary

Public Participation

The involvement of parties in the Section 106 consultation process who may be concerned

with the possible effects of an agency action on historic properties. This involvement is

outlined in the Section 106 regulations that govern the historic review process.

Recordation and Documentation

One measure used by Federal agencies for treating the adverse effects of an undertaking,

recordation and documentation is the process of conducting ﬁeldwork and background

research for a property, including measured drawings, photographs, an architectural

description, and a historic narrative. This information is then ﬁled with the State Historic

Preservation Ofﬁce/Tribal Historic Preservation Ofﬁce or other archive, as identiﬁed in the

Memorandum of Agreement (MOA).

Redevelopment

The process of rebuilding a community’s economic activity similar to the process of

reconstruction. Redevelopment differs from economic recovery in that it goes beyond the

process of merely restoring disrupted economic activity to the creation of new economic

opportunities and enterprises in the aftermath of the recovery period, particularly including

those that arise as by-products or direct outcomes of the disaster itself.

Rehabilitation

One measure used by Federal agencies for treating the adverse effects of an undertaking,

rehabilitation is the process of returning a historic property to a state of utility, through repair

or alteration, which makes possible an efﬁcient contemporary use while preserving those

portions and features of a property which are signiﬁcant to its historical, architectural, and

cultural values.

Relocation

One measure used by Federal agencies for treating the adverse effects of an undertaking,

relocation is an option for individual property owners when technically and ﬁnancially

feasible. While it is preferred to keep a property in its historic context, when possible,

relocation often provides the opportunity to satisfy the needs and concerns of all parties

involved.

Replacement Value

Represents the approximate cost of the contemporary reconstruction of an existing building,

structure, or cultural resource. The replacement value is used in determining the cost-

effectiveness of various hazard mitigation alternatives.

Restoration

A treatment measure for a historic property, restoration is the act or process of accurately

recovering the form and details of a property and its setting as it appeared at a particular

period of time.

Risk

The potential loss associated with a hazard, deﬁned in terms of expected probability and

frequency, exposure, and consequences. Also, the estimated impact that a hazard would have

on people, services, facilities, and structures in a community; or the likelihood of a hazard

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

event resulting in an adverse condition that causes injury or damage. Risk is often expressed

in relative terms such as a high, moderate, or low likelihood of sustaining damage above a

particular threshold due to a speciﬁc type of hazard event. It also can be expressed in terms of

potential monetary losses associated with the intensity of the hazard.

Risk Assessment

Measuring the potential for property damage, economic loss, injury, and death that may

result from both natural and manmade hazards. Speciﬁcally, it involves identifying potential

hazards and assessing a community’s ability to survive them, diminish their impact, or avoid

them completely. Risk assessment is central to the hazard mitigation planning process, and

is described fully in FEMA 386-2, Understanding Your Risks: Identifying Hazards and Estimating

Losses.

Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Archeology and Historic Preservation

Professional standards that address results to be achieved by Federal agencies when planning

for the identiﬁcation, evaluation, registration, and treatment of historic properties.

Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation

The section of the overall preservation project standards that addresses the most prevalent

treatment (in 36 CFR 67) of a property’s characteristics that are signiﬁcant to its historic,

architectural, and cultural values.

Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties

A series of concepts about maintaining, repairing, and replacing historic materials, as well as

designing new additions or making alterations; as such, they cannot, in and of themselves,

be used to make essential decisions about which features of a historic property should be

saved and which might be changed. Once an appropriate treatment is selected, the Standards

provide philosophical consistency to the work.

Section 106

The review process established under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act

(NHPA) that addresses results to be achieved by Federal agencies when planning for the

identiﬁcation, evaluation, registration, and treatment of historic properties. The NHPA

under Section 106 requires that every Federal agency “take into account” how each of its

undertakings could affect historic properties. An agency must also afford the Advisory

Council for Historic Preservation (ACHP) a reasonable opportunity to comment on the

agency’s undertakings.

Seismic Rehabilitation/Seismic Retroﬁ

Technical measures used to reduce a building’s earthquake vulnerability. Includes the

development of an objective, the determination of a design event, a preliminary building

evaluation, including the concept of building redundancy, a classiﬁcation of building

elements into primary and secondary, and the development of a preliminary rehabilitation

or retroﬁt design speciﬁc to the building and the area in which it is located. For more

information please see FEMA 274, NEHRP Commentary on the Guidelines for the Seismic

Rehabilitation of Buildings, October, 1997.

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appendix a – glossary

Signiﬁcance

Historic signiﬁcance is the importance of a property to the history, architecture, archeology,

engineering, or culture of a community, State, or the nation. Historic signiﬁcance is based on

four criteria (see Criteria for Evaluation above) and is an important qualiﬁcation for National

Sound Land Management and Use

The process wherein the governmental body responsible for land use regulation in a political

jurisdiction plans and regulates the use of land within its jurisdiction in order to promote

the reduction of property exposure to ﬂood hazard and the protection of environmental

values of ﬂoodplains. Sound use of land acquired with FEMA funds and transferred to

local governments is used primarily for open space and recreational purposes to minimize

potential for any future ﬂood damage.

Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA)

Land area subject to inundation by a ﬂood having a 1-percent or greater probability of being

equaled or exceeded during any given year (base, or 100-year ﬂood).

State Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer (SHPO)

In cooperation with Federal agencies, SHPOs are responsible for directing and conducting

a comprehensive statewide survey of historic properties and maintaining inventories of such

properties under Section 101(b)(3) of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). These

State ofﬁcials maintain important information on historic properties in inventories and in

comprehensive statewide historic preservation plans, and are required to have qualiﬁed

preservation professionals on staff. Federal agencies are directed in Section 110 of the NHPA

to cooperate with SHPOs in establishing programs to locate, inventory, and nominate historic

properties to the National Register.

State Inventory of Historic Properties

Based on State Historic Property Surveys (HPSs), the State Inventory is a listing of all historic

resources in the State, including those of local or regional signiﬁcance. This inventory is the

responsibility of the State Historic Preservation Ofﬁce.

State Register of Historic Places

Based on State Cultural Resource Surveys (CRSs) and the State Inventory of Cultural

Resources, States maintain a list of historic properties of State signiﬁcance. Although the State

Registers contain National Register properties, they usually contain more properties and are

based on different criteria than the National Register. Designated by a State Review Board and

administered by the State Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer (SHPO), State Registers are often the

ﬁrst hurdle for obtaining National Register status for historic properties.

Structure

As deﬁned under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), a walled and roofed

building, including a storage tank for gas or liquid, that is principally above ground, as well as

a manufactured home.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Within the historic preservation community, the term “structure” refers to a speciﬁc type of

historic property. This term is used to distinguish from buildings those historic properties

made for purposes other than human shelter. Representative examples include a bandstand,

canal, earthwork, gazebo, grain elevator, lighthouse, silo, tunnel, and windmill.

Traditional Cultural Property (TCP)

A property eligible for inclusion in the National Register because of its association with

cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that are rooted in that community and are

important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community. An example of

a TCP is a location associated with the traditional beliefs of a Native American group about

its origins, its cultural history, or the nature of the world. Federal agencies must treat TCPs as

historic properties under Section 106. For further guidance, see National Register Bulletin

#38, Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Traditional Cultural Properties.

Treatment

A measure used by a Federal agency to avoid, reduce, minimize, or offset the adverse

effects that a Federal undertaking may have on a historic property. Although there are

some treatment measures that are typically used by the agency (see Recordation and

Documentation; Data Recovery; Curation; Relocation), Federal agencies are not limited to

these measures and can use any measure upon which the involved parties agree. Treatment

does not have to have a direct impact on the adverse effect for a speciﬁc historic property,

but may include educational and planning tools or other measures to promote historic

preservation awareness and practice in a community.

Tribal Government

The recognized governing body of an Indian Tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, or

community, including any Alaska Native Village deﬁned in or established pursuant to the

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (85 Stat. 688) (Source: FEMA Tribal Policy).

Tribal Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer (THPO)

The Tribal equivalent to a State Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer (SHPO). The THPO may

assume a role parallel to that of State government in administering the national historic

preservation program on reservations. Tribes will tailor the program to accommodate

Tribal values and address Tribal priorities. The 1992 Amendments to the National Historic

Preservation Act (NHPA) recognized the Tribes’ growing capabilities in historic preservation

and the Tribes’ rightful place in the national program. Speciﬁcally, the 1992 Amendments

provide for Tribes, at their request, to assume responsibilities for such functions as identifying

and maintaining inventories of culturally signiﬁcant properties, nominating properties to the

National Register, conducting Section 106 review of Federal agency projects on Tribal lands,

and administering educational programs on the importance of preserving historic properties.

Tribal Lands

All lands within the exterior boundaries of any Indian reservation and all dependent Indian

communities (Source: 36 CFR Part 800).

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appendix b

library

The library contains many sources for helping you with historic

properties, cultural resources, and hazard mitigation. Below is an

outline to help ﬁnd information for your speciﬁc needs.

I. Site-Speciﬁc Emergency Response Plans

II. Funding Tools

A. Primary Federal Programs

B. Other Federal Programs

C. Primary State Programs

D. Other State Programs

E. Non-Proﬁt Organizations

III. Contact Information

A. Federal Government

B. State Governments

C. Tribal Governments

D. Non-Proﬁt Organizations

IV. Publications

V. Other Useful Web Sites

I. Site-Speciﬁc Emergency

Response Plans

Development of site-speciﬁc emergency response plans should

be strongly considered for historic properties with extensive

collections of cultural resources. Ideally, each plan should cover

continuation and stafﬁng, pre-disaster planning, actions to be taken

immediately prior to the disaster, if possible, and actions to take in

response to the disasters.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

A number of publications and Web sites can provide guidance on

developing a site-speciﬁc emergency response plan:

Preparedness

California Preservation Clearinghouse (http://cpc.stanford.edu/

disasters/index.html) includes a generic disaster plan, information

on other sites to visit for sample disaster plans and case histories,

and a disaster plan exercise to test an existing disaster plan and

train staff.

Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH) (http://www.ﬂash.org)

can assist with mitigation planning and insurance issues.

Mitigation

Archaeological Stabilization Guide: Case Studies in Protecting

Archaeological Sites (Florida Department of State, 2000, http://www.

ﬂheritage.com) contains useful techniques for stabilizing and

protecting archeological resources, including vegetation, hay bales,

renourishment, and sandbags.

Best Management Practices: An Owner’s Guide to Protecting

Archaeological Sites (Florida Department of State, 2000, http://www.

ﬂheritage.com) overviews stabilization and protection techniques.

Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Historic Preservation

and Cultural Resources Program (http://www.fema.gov/ehp)

includes ideas on how to mitigate disaster damage to historic and

cultural resources.

Hurricane Readiness Guide for Owners and Managers of Historic

Resources (National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Information

Series, http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/briefs/presbhom.htm)

focuses on various techniques to protect historic structures from

hurricane damage and to employ in the recovery process.

Preserving History from Fire: Bridging the Gap Between Safety Codes and

Historic Buildings (Old House Journal, November/December 2000)

addresses ﬁre code issues for historic buildings.

Response and Recovery

FEMA Job Aid for Photographing Historic Properties After a Disaster

(FEMA, 2001, call 1.800.480.2520 and ask for Job Aid #9580.6)

provides clear direction on how to take photographs necessary to

document a site for the purposes of determining National Register

eligibility after a disaster.

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appendix b – library

Georgia Historic Preservation Division (http://www.gashpo.

org/assets/documents/1996_after_the_ﬂood.pdf) contains a

publication about recovering from a ﬂood.

Heritage Emergency National Task Force (http://www.

heritagepreservation.org) has a series of useful publications,

including the Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel, Resources for

Recovery: Post-Disaster Aid for Cultural Institutions,

and Cataclysm

and Challenge: Impact of September 11, 2001, on Our Nation’s Cultural

Heritage (2002). This Web site also includes useful links to

numerous disaster preparedness and response sites for cultural

institutions.

North Carolina State Historic Preservation Ofﬁce (http://www.

hpo.dcr.state.nc.us/disaster.htm) includes extensive information

for owners of damaged buildings following a natural disaster.

Treatment of Flood-Damaged Older and Historic Buildings

(National

Trust for Historic Preservation’s Information Series, http://www.

cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/briefs/presbhom.htm) identiﬁes ways to deal

with foundation erosion, wood rot, saturated insulation, damage to

interior ﬁnishes, and other recovery concerns.

Disaster Planning for Cultural Institutions

Central New York Library Resources Council (http://www.clrc.org)

provides information on completing a disaster plan for libraries,

museums, and cultural institutions.

The Getty Conservation Institute (http://www.getty.edu/

conservation) provides information on disaster preparedness and

response for cultural institutions.

II. Funding Tools

Several sources of funds are available for the protection of historic

resources in hazard-prone communities. Various State, Federal,

and private programs provide assistance to local communities and

homeowners, although grant funds may be limited in amount.

Some of the major programs available to local communities,

individual businesses, and homeowners are listed below. Many of

these funding tools may be combined in hazard mitigation projects

which protect historic resources.

Note that the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation (ACHP)

has provided an exhaustive list of funding sources for historic and

cultural resource projects, only some of which are described here.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

To learn more about this list, visit http://www.achp.gov/funding.

html.

A. Primary Federal Programs

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides

help to States and communities for disaster assistance and hazard

mitigation activities under the following programs:

Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG)

Program.

Formerly known as the State and Local Assistance

Program, the EMPG is another potential source of funds.

A Federal program that is administered by your State

emergency management agency (SEMA), EMGP’s purpose is

to encourage communities to develop comprehensive disaster

preparedness and assistance plans, programs, and capabilities.

Congress appropriates funds for the EMGP program,

and grants are available on a 50 percent matching basis.

Additional information about this program may be requested

from a grant administrator.

Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) Program.

Funding under

this program provides grants to States and communities to

plan and carry out activities designed to reduce the risk of

ﬂood damage to structures covered under the National Flood

Insurance Program (NFIP). The program provides planning

and project grants for activities that are technically feasible,

cost-effective, and proposed projects that meet minimum

NFIP Standards and are cost-beneﬁcial to the NFIP. This is

an annual FEMA program with funding levels for each State

based upon the number of insured properties in that State.

For more information, see http://www.fema.gov/ﬁma/

mitgrant.shtm.

Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). This program

provides grants to States for their use in conducting

mitigation activities, implementing State or local hazard

mitigation plans, and funding mitigation actions in disaster-

prone areas. Funding for the HMGP is set at 7.5% of the total

Federal disaster assistance grants made under a Presidentially

declared disaster. States with Standard Plans may be granted

this percentage. For States with Enhanced Plans, HMGP

grants of up to 20% may be provided. Individual property

owners should contact their local jurisdiction for application

procedures. Further information is available on http://www.

fema.gov/ﬁma/mitgrant.shtm.

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appendix b – library

Increased Cost of Compliance (ICC). Coverage that may

be available to historic structures covered by a Standard

Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP) under the National Flood

Insurance Program (NFIP). ICC is an endorsement of the

ﬂood insurance policy that provides a claim payment directly

to a property owner for the cost to comply with State or

community ﬂoodplain management laws or ordinances after

a direct physical loss caused by a ﬂood. When a building

covered by an SFIP under the NFIP sustains a loss and the

State or community declares the building to be substantially

or repetitively damaged, ICC will help pay up to $30,000

for the cost to elevate, ﬂoodproof, demolish, or relocate

the building. ICC is not available on a historic structure

if it is exempt under the community’s ordinance from

the ﬂoodplain management requirements or is granted

a variance. ICC is also not available for mitigation actions

that do not bring the building into compliance with the

community’s ﬂoodplain management ordinance. Additional

information is available at http://www.fema.gov/nﬁp/icc.

shtm.

Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) Program. This program

was authorized by §203 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster

Assistance and Emergency Relief Act (Stafford Act), 42 U.S.C.,

as amended by §102 of the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000.

Funding for the program is provided through the National

Pre-Disaster Mitigation Fund to assist States, Tribes, and local

governments in implementing cost-effective hazard mitigation

activities that complement a comprehensive mitigation

program. Additional information is available at http://www.

fema.gov/ﬁma/pdm.shtm.

Most FEMA funding programs are administered through the State

emergency management agencies (SEMAs). Further information

on these and other FEMA funding programs may be obtained at

http://www.fema.gov.

B. Other Federal Programs

Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). Administered

by State community development agencies and local governments

on the behalf of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban

Development (HUD) to provide decent housing and a suitable

living environment, principally for low-to-moderate-income

individuals. CDBG activities may include the acquisition,

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

rehabilitation, and reconstruction of disaster-damaged properties

and the redevelopment of disaster-affected neighborhoods.

Additional information is available at http://www.huduser.org/

periodicals/rrr/cdbg.html.

Disaster Assistance Loans. The Small Business Administration

(SBA) provides low-interest disaster assistance loans of up to

$200,000 for the repair or replacement of a primary residence;

low-interest loans of up to $40,000 for the repair and replacement

of household and personal property; and low-interest loans of up to

$500,000 for business owners and non-proﬁt organizations for the

repair, rehabilitation, or replacement of property. SBA assistance is

generally available following a major disaster declaration. This may

be useful for hazard-prone historic commercial districts. Further

information is available on the SBA’s homepage at http://www.sba.

gov/disaster_recov/index.html.

Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit. Federal law provides a Federal

income tax credit equal to 20% of the cost of rehabilitating a

historic building for commercial use. To qualify for the credit,

the property must be a certiﬁed historic structure–that is, on the

National Register or contributing to a registered historic district.

(Non-historic buildings built before 1936 qualify for a 10% tax

credit.) A substantial rehabilitation is necessary, and the work must

meet the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. The historic

preservation tax credit has been a powerful tool for neighborhood

revitalization. Applications for the credit are available through

State Historic Preservation Ofﬁces and the ﬁnal decisions are made

by the National Park Service (NPS). More information is available

at http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/tax/index.htm.

Historic Preservation Fund Grants-in-Aid

. Grants provided by

the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service (NPS)

for the identiﬁcation, evaluation, and protection of historic

properties. These grants are awarded through State Historic

Preservation Ofﬁces for survey and planning activities, and in

some instances, for improvements to historic properties through

matching acquisition and development grants. Further information

is available through your State Historic Preservation Ofﬁce. More

information is available at http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/clg/index.

htm.

Planning Assistance. The National Resources Conservation Service

(NRCS) provides planning assistance for watershed protection

projects, water quality improvement projects, wetland preservation,

and management for agricultural and rural communities. Many

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appendix b – library

rural communities may feature hazard-prone historic resources.

Further information is available on the NRCS’s homepage at

http://www.nrcs.usda.gov.

Technical Assistance Program

. The U.S. Department of Energy

(DOE) Technical Assistance Program provides services to

communities for the revitalization of single-family, multi-family,

and commercial buildings. DOE staff are experienced in

performing housing assessment needs, and in identifying ﬁnancing

mechanisms, especially those that include funds for energy

efﬁciency. Further information is available on the DOE’s homepage

at http://www.energy.gov_engine/content.do.

Another DOE program, the Department’s Center for Excellence

for Sustainable Development, works with communities to help

them deﬁne and implement sustainable development strategies

as part of their comprehensive community planning efforts.

The Center provides technical assistance to disaster-affected

communities as they plan community-scale long-term recovery

efforts, including relocation, repairs, and reconstruction by

introducing a wide array of environmental technologies and

sustainable redevelopment planning practices. Further information

is available by visiting the DOE’s Web site http://www.sustainable.

doe.gov.

Transportation Enhancements Funding.

In 1991, Congress created

a special fund to encourage States to dedicate transportation

money to projects that enhance local communities. In the

legislation—normally referred to as ISTEA—that established that

fund, Congress listed speciﬁc activities, including acquisition of

historic or scenic sites, historic highway programs with heritage

tourism components, ”rails to trails” programs, and rehabilitation

of historic transportation buildings, and archeological planning as

“transportation enhancements.” Since 1991, States have dedicated

nearly $1 billion in Federal-aid highway funds to thousands of

transportation-related historic preservation projects; historic

resources have also beneﬁted from enhancement money for

landscaping, land acquisition, historic bridge and road activities,

and streetscapes in historic commercial districts.

For more information on transportation enhancements funding,

download Building on the Past, Traveling to the Future, a free

guide prepared by the National Trust and the Federal Highway

Administration, or visit http://www.enhancements.org, http://

www.tea21.org, http://www.transact.org.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

C. Primary State Programs

State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMAs) provide disaster

assistance to local communities and hazard mitigation grants

to residents and business owners. Through the Stafford Act, a

SEMA administers many of FEMA’s funding programs. For more

information on three Federal programs administered by your

SEMA, see:

Emergency Management Performance Grant Program;

Hazard Mitigation Grant Program;

and

Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program.

State Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer (SHPO) ofﬁces provide the

following funding programs:

Historic Preservation Fund (HPF). Provides grants to Tribes,

States, and local governments to use for activities such as

education, preparation of National Register nominations,

and development of comprehensive preservation plans.

Established in 1976 as an amendment to the National Historic

Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966, the HPF receives annual

appropriations from Congress, and this Federal money is

matched by State dollars. The fund is administered in a

partnership between the National Park Service (NPS) and the

States through SHPO ofﬁces, Tribes, and local governments.

To learn more, visit http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/hpf/index.

htm.

State Grant Programs. Many States provide matching funds to

carry out historic preservation activities. Project work includes

such activities as rehabilitation and restoration of historic

properties, survey and evaluation of historic properties,

educational materials, and development of local historic

preservation programs. For more information, contact your

local SHPO ofﬁce.

State Tax Credits. Many States offer historic preservation tax

incentive programs including credits, reductions, freezes, and

abatements for owners of commercial and residential historic

properties. The National Trust for Historic Preservation

(NTHP), a non-proﬁt organization, maintains a State-by-

State list of available tax incentive programs at http://www.

nationaltrust.org/help/taxincentives.pdf.

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appendix b – library

D. Other State Programs

Statewide, Regional, and Local Main Street Programs. Numerous

communities across the nation have participated in the National

Main Street Program, which has been a valuable mechanism for

the revitalization of historic downtown areas. An important part

of the Main Street approach to downtown revitalization involves

the rehabilitation of downtown facades. In addition to assisting

communities in improving the appearance of their downtown

areas and promoting historic preservation, the program has also

been an economic stimulus in that it has led to the creation of

new businesses and jobs in these communities. The organizational

structure of Main Street programs is often a public-private

partnership, but varies from State to State. Further information is

available at http://www.mainstreet.org/.

E. Non-Proﬁt Organizations

The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP). Assists

individual historic property owners with ﬁnancial help and advice.

The NTHP provides low-interest, short-term loans for property

stabilization. Grants are also awarded to governments, non-proﬁt

organizations, and private property owners for professional

assistance in rehabilitating historic structures. These grants may

be used to plan for the rehabilitation of hazard-prone historic

resources. Further information is available on the National Trust’s

homepage at http://www.nthp.org/help/grants.html.

The Preservation Services Fund. Provides non-proﬁt

organizations and public agencies matching grants from $500

to $5,000 (typically from $1,000 to $1,500) for preservation

planning and education efforts. Funds may be used to

obtain professional expertise in areas such as architecture,

archeology, engineering, preservation planning, land-use

planning, fund raising, organizational development, and law,

as well as preservation education activities to educate the

public.

The Johanna Favrot Fund for Historic Preservation. Provides

non-proﬁt organizations and public agencies grants ranging

from $2,500 to $10,000 for projects that contribute to the

preservation or the recapture of an authentic sense of place.

Individuals and for-proﬁt businesses may apply only if the

project for which funding is requested involves a National

Historic Landmark. Funds may be used for professional

advice, conferences, workshops, and education programs.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund for Historic Interiors.

Provides non-proﬁt organizations and public agencies grants

ranging from $2,500 to $10,000 to assist in the preservation,

restoration, and interpretation of historic interiors.

Individuals and for-proﬁt businesses may apply only if the

project for which funding is requested involves a National

Historic Landmark. Funds may be used for professional

expertise, print and video communications materials, and

education programs.

The Save America’s Treasures Funding (SAT). A program founded

by the White House Millennium Council and the National Trust

for Historic Preservation to celebrate America’s great historic and

cultural legacy. SAT fosters pride in our heritage by identifying

and raising resources to preserve historically signiﬁcant sites and

collections–the enduring symbols that deﬁne us as a nation. Each

year, a competitive process awards Federal grants to eligible historic

resources for approved preservation activities. These grants require

non-Federal dollar-for-dollar matches and are administered by

the National Park Service (NPS), in partnership with the National

Endowment for the Arts. For more information, visit http://www.

saveamericastreasures.org/funding.htm.

III. Contact Information

A. Federal Government

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP)

The ACHP is an independent Federal agency that promotes the

preservation, enhancement, and productive use of our Nation’s

historic resources, and advises the President and Congress on

national historic preservation policy. The ACHP also serves as the

primary Federal policy advisor to the President and Congress;

recommends administrative and legislative improvements for

protecting our Nation’s heritage; advocates full consideration of

historic values in Federal decision-making; and reviews Federal

programs and policies to promote effectiveness, coordination, and

consistency with national preservation policies.

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 809

Old Post Ofﬁce Building

Washington, DC 20004

Telephone: 202-606-8503

http://www.achp.gov

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appendix b – library

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Federal agency created in 1979 to provide a single point of

accountability for all Federal activities related to disaster mitigation

and emergency preparedness, response, and recovery. In 2003,

it was absorbed into the newly created Department of Homeland

Security.

FEMA Headquarters

500 C Street SW

Washington, DC 20472

Telephone: 202-566-1600

http://www.fema.gov

FEMA Publications Warehouse

1-800-480-2520

Environmental, Historic Preservation, and Cultural

Resources Programs

http://www.fema.gov/ehp

Hazard Mitigation Planning Resources

http://www.fema.gov/ﬁma/planning.shtm

State and Local Mitigation Planning How-To Guides

http://www.fema.gov/ﬁma/resources.shtm

National Park Service (NPS)

Created in 1916 within the U.S. Department of the Interior,

NPS supports the preservation of natural and historic places.

NPS administers the National Register of Historic Places and

offers services to citizens and communities to identify, evaluate,

protect, and preserve historic properties for future generations of

Americans.

National Register of Historic Places

National Park Service

1201 Eye St., NW, 8th Floor

Washington, DC 20005

Telephone: 202-354-2213

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr

Heritage Preservation Services

National Park Service

1201 Eye Street, NW, 6

Floor (2255)

Washington, DC 20005

Telephone: 202-513-7270

http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

B. State Governments

National Conference of State Historic Preservation Ofﬁcers

(NCSHPO)

Every State and territory has a State Historic Preservation Ofﬁce.

For an up-to-date listing and current contact information, please

visit the Web site of the following organization:

National Conference of State Historic Preservation

Ofﬁcers

Suite 342 Hall of the States

444 North Capitol Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001-1512

Telephone: 202-624-5465

Facsimile: 202-624-5419

http://www.ncshpo.org/

The NCSHPO is the professional association of the State

government ofﬁcials who carry out the national historic

preservation program as delegates of the Secretary of the

Interior pursuant to the National Historic Preservation Act

(NHPA) of 1966, as amended (16 U.S.C. 470). The NCSHPO

acts as a communications vehicle among the State Historic

Preservation Ofﬁces and their staffs and represents the State

Historic Preservation Ofﬁcers (SHPOs) with Federal agencies

and national preservation organizations. Questions about historic

preservation (i.e., a Federal project, listing in the National Register,

tax incentives, etc.) in individual States should be directed to the

respective State.

The NCSHPO, a 501(c)(3) corporation registered in the District

of Columbia, is governed by a Board of Directors elected by the

member States. The NHPA names the NCSHPO as the point of

contact for the SHPOs. The president of the NCSHPO is an ex-

ofﬁcio member of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

C. Tribal Governments

National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Ofﬁcers

(NATHPO)

NATHPO, founded in 1998, is a national, non-proﬁt corporation

composed of Tribal Historic Preservation Ofﬁcers and associate

member Tribes. NATHPO’s overarching purpose is to support

the preservation, maintenance, and revitalization of the culture

and traditions of Native peoples of the United States. This is

accomplished most importantly through the support of Tribal

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Historic Preservation Programs approved by the National Park

Service (NPS).

National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation

Ofﬁcers

P.O. Box 19189

Washington, DC 20036-9189

Telephone: 202-628-8476

Facsimile: 202-628-2241

http://www.nathpo.org

Additional information on Tribal Historic Preservation Ofﬁces may

be found on the following Web sites:

http://www.achp.gov/thpo.html

http://www2.cr.nps.gov/tribal/tribalofﬁces.htm

D. Non-Proﬁt Organizations

American Association for State and Local History (AASLH)

The AASLH is a non-proﬁt organization which serves to meet the

diverse needs of regional historians and historical organizations.

American Association for State and Local History

1717 Church Street

Nashville, TN 37203-2991

Telephone: 615-320-3203

http://www.aaslh.org/

American Institute of Architects (AIA)

The AIA is a professional association which provides ongoing

professional training and accreditation for architects, in addition to

promoting the creation of a better built environment. The AIA also

maintains multiple local and regional chapters, and many special

interest committees, including the Historic Resources Committee.

The American Institute of Architects

1735 New York Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20006-5292

Telephone: 800-AIA-3837

http://www.aia.org/hrc/

American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works

(AIC)

The AIC is a professional non-proﬁt organization which sponsors

training sessions, a juried research publication, and annual

meetings for conservators – individuals who manage, care for,

preserve, or treat cultural objects, including artistic, historical,

archeological, scientiﬁc, or religious objects.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

American Institute for Conservation of Historic and

Artistic Works

1717 K Street NW, Suite 200

Washington, DC 20006

Telephone: 202-452-9545

http://aic.stanford.edu

American Planning Association (APA)

The APA is a non-proﬁt public interest and research organization

committed to urban, suburban, regional, and rural planning. APA

and its professional institute, the American Institute of Certiﬁed

Planners, advance the art and science of planning to meet the

needs of people and society. The APA maintains a number of

regional and local chapters, as well as a number of special interest

divisions.

American Planning Association

122 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600

Chicago, IL 60603

Telephone: 312-431-9100

http://www.planning.org/

Association for Preservation Technology International (APT)

The APT is a non-proﬁt professional organization dedicated to

advancing the application of technology to the conservation of

the built environment. The APT sponsors a juried publication,

and organizes training programs on a wide variety of historic

preservation topics.

Association for Preservation Technology International

4513 Lincoln Ave., Suite 213

Lisle, IL 60532-1290 USA

Telephone: 630-968-6400

Facsimile (Toll Free): 888-723-4242

http://www.apti.org

American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)

The ASLA is the national professional association representing

landscape architects. The ASLA promotes the landscape

architecture profession and advances the practice through

advocacy, education, communication, and fellowship.

American Society of Landscape Architects

636 Eye Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001-3736

Telephone: 202-898-2444

http://www.asla.org/

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Disaster Research Center (DRC)

The DRC at the University of Delaware conducts ﬁeld and survey

research on group, organizational and community preparation for,

response to, and recovery from natural and technological disasters

and other community-wide crises. DRC researchers have carried

out systematic studies on a broad range of disaster types, including

hurricanes, ﬂoods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hazardous chemical

incidents, and plane crashes.

Disaster Research Center

87 East Main Street

Newark, DE 19716-2581

Telephone: 302-831-6618

http://www.udel.edu/drc

Heritage Preservation

Heritage Preservation is a non-proﬁt information clearinghouse

which works to ensure the preservation of America’s collective

heritage. The Heritage Emergency National Task Force is co-

sponsored by Heritage Preservation and FEMA, and features a

broad membership of over 30 Federal agencies and national service

organizations. The Heritage Emergency National Task Force

allows for libraries and archives, museums, historical societies,

and historic sites to better protect their collections from natural

disasters and other emergencies. It promotes preparedness and

mitigation measures and provides expert information on response

and salvage to institutions and the public.

Heritage Preservation

1012 14th St., NW, Suite 1200

Washington, DC 20006

Telephone: 202-233-0800

http://www.heritagepreservation.org/

National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP)

A private non-proﬁt organization with more than a quarter million

members, the NTHP is the leader of the vigorous preservation

movement that is saving the best of our past for the future. The

NTHP features a variety of services, including an information

clearinghouse, advocacy and support services, legal services,

training, and outreach.

The NTHP’s regional and ﬁeld ofﬁces bring the programs and

tools of the NTHP to local communities across the country. They

offer technical assistance through consultations and ﬁeld visits and

ﬁnancial assistance, primarily through small grants to help jump

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

start local efforts. The NTHP convenes educational programs for

professional preservationists, and it works to foster preservation-

friendly public policies which affect historic places. The NTHP also

provides leadership on issues that concern entire regions, such as

saving historic schools, ﬁghting urban sprawl, and revitalizing cities

through historic preservation.

National Trust for Historic Preservation

1785 Massachusetts Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20036-2117

Telephone: 202-588-6000

http://www.nthp.org

Regional Alliance for Preservation (RAP)

The RAP is a cooperative program of 14 organizations created

to foster cooperation among various Preservation Field Service

Programs and to assist a wide variety of cultural institutions

with collections care activities. The mission of the RAP is to

provide comprehensive preservation information to cultural

institutions and the public throughout the United States. As a

collaborative umbrella organization, RAP does not maintain its own

headquarters or staff. For a list of participating organizations and

additional information on RAP, please see their Web site at http://

www.rap-arcc.org.

IV. Publications

Baker, John Milnes A.I.A.

1994 American House Styles: A Concise Guide. New York: W.W.

Norton and Company.

Berke, Philip R., Jack Kartez, and David Wenger

1994 Recovery After Disasters: Achieving Sustainable Development,

Mitigation and Equity.

College Station: Hazard

Reduction and Recovery Center, Texas A & M

University.

Burton, Ian, Robert W. Kates, and Gilbert F. White

1993 The Environment as Hazard, 2nd edition. New York:

Guilford Press.

Calloway, Stephen and Elizabeth Cromley

1991 The Elements of Style. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Carley, Rachel

1997 The Visual Dictionary of American Domestic Architecture.

New York: Henry Holt and Company.

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Cole, Robert Vail, George Alexander, Robert Ballard, et al.

2000 Historic Preservation Project Planning and Estimating.

Kingston, Massachusetts: R. S. Means Company, Inc.

De Sario, Jack, and Stuart Langton, eds.

1987 Citizen Participation in Public Decision Making. Westport,

Connecticut: Greenwood Press.

Design Center for American Urban Landscape

1994 Recover and Resettlement: A First Look at Post-Flood Recovery

Planning Issues in the Upper Mississippi River Valley.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.

Drabek, Thomas E., and Gerard J. Hoetmer, eds.

1991 Emergency Management: Principles and Practice of Local

Government. Washington, DC: International City

Management Association.

Fram, Mark

1992 Well-Preserved, rev. ed. Erin, Ontario, Canada: Boston

Mills Press.

Friedman, Donald

1995 Historical Building Construction: Design, Materials, and

Technology. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Frieseman, H. Paul, et al.

1979 Aftermath: Communities After Natural Disasters. Beverly

Hills, California: Sage Publications.

Geipel, Robert

1982 Disaster and Reconstruction. London: George Allen &

Unwin Ltd.

Georgia State Historic Preservation Ofﬁce

1998 Historic Preservation Natural Disaster Assistance Plan.

Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Department of

Natural Resources, Atlanta, Georgia.

Haas, J. Eugene, Robert W. Kates, and Martyn J. Bowden, eds.

1977 Reconstruction Following Disaster. Cambridge,

Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Heritage Preservation Services and National Park Service

1998 Caring for Your Historic House. New York: Harry N.

Abrams, Inc.

Hiss, Tony

1990 The Experience of Place. New York, Alfred A. Knopf.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Department of Natural

Resources

1997 After the Flood: Rebuilding Communities through Historic

Preservation. Historic Preservation Division, Georgia

Department of Natural Resources, Atlanta, Georgia.

May, Peter J.

1985 Recovering from Catastrophes: Federal Disaster Relief Policy

and Politics. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.

McAlester, Virginia and Lee McAlester

1991 A Field Guide to American Houses. New York: Alfred A.

Knopf.

Missouri State Emergency Management Agency

1993 Out of Harm’s Way: The Missouri Buyout Program.

Missouri State Emergency Management Agency,

Jefferson City, Missouri.

National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior

1989 Emergency Stabilization and Conservation Measures. The

Frances R. Edmunds Center for Historic Preservation,

Historic Charleston Foundation, Charleston, South

Carolina.

National Science Foundation

1980 A Report on Flood Hazard Mitigation. Washington, DC:

National Science Foundation.

National Wildlife Federation

1997 Higher Ground: A Report on Voluntary Property Buyouts

in the Nation’s Floodplains, A Common Ground Solution

Serving People at Risk, Taxpayers and the Environment.

National Wildlife Federation, Washington, DC.

http://nwf.org/ﬂoodplain/higherground/index.html

(October 26, 2001).

Nelson, Carl L.

1991 Protecting the Past from Natural Disasters. Washington,

DC: Preservation Press, National Trust for Historic

Preservation.

Nigg, J. M., Jasmin K. Riad, Tricia Wachtendorf, Angela Tweedy,

and L. Reshaur

1998 Executive Summary,

Disaster Resistant Communities

Initiative: Evaluation of the Pilot Phase, Year One.

Disaster

Research Center, University of Delaware.

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Nobel, Allen G. and Richard K. Cleek

1997 The Old Barn Book: A Field Guide to North American Barns

and Other Farm Structures.

New Brunswick, New Jersey:

Rutgers University Press.

Palm, Risa I.

1990 Natural Hazards: An Integrative Framework for Research

and Planning. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University

Press.

Petak, William J. and Arthur A. Atkisson

1982 Natural Hazard Risk Assessment and Public Policy:

Anticipating the Unexpected. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Rubin, Claire B., with Martin D. Saperstein and Daniel G. Barbee

1985 Community Recovery from a Major Natural Disaster.

Monograph #41. Boulder: University of Colorado

Institute of Behavioral Science.

Schwab, Jim, Kenneth Topping, Charles Eadie, Robert Deyle, and

Richard Smith

1998 Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction.

American Planning Association, Chicago.

Sheaffer, John R.

1967 Introduction to Flood Prooﬁng. Chicago: Center for

Urban Studies, University of Chicago.

Skinner, Nancy and Bill Becker

1995 Pattonsburg, Missouri: On Higher Ground. President’s

Council on Sustainable Development, Washington,

DC.

South Florida Regional Planning Council

1990 Post-Disaster Redevelopment Planning: Model Plans for

Three Florida Scenarios.

South Florida Regional Council,

Tampa, Florida.

Spennemann, Dirk H. R. and David W. Look.

1998 Disaster Management Programs for Historic Sites.

Association for Preservation Technology, Western

Chapter, San Francisco; U.S. National Park Service,

Washington, DC; and The Johnstone Centre, Charles

Sturt University, Albury, New South Wales, Australia.

Strangstad, Lynette

1995 A Graveyard Preservation Primer. Walnut Creek,

California: Alta Mira Press.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Thurow, Charles, William Toner, and Duncan Erley

1975 Performance Controls for Sensitive Lands: A Practical Guide

for Local Administrators. Planning Advisory Service

Report #307/308. American Planning Association,

Chicago.

Topping, Kenneth C.

1991 Key Laws, Codes, and Authorities Affecting Recovery and

Reconstruction.

Consultant Report #1, Los Angeles.

Trust for Public Land

1995 Doing Deals: A Guide to Buying Land for Conservation.

Land Trust Alliance, Washington, DC.

Tyler, Norman

2000 Historic Preservation: An Introduction to Its History,

Principles, and Practice. New York: W.W. Norton and

Company.

Uguccioni, Ellen and Joseph Herndon

1997 Hurricane Readiness Guide for Owners and Managers

of Historic Resources. National Trust for Historic

Preservation, Washington, DC.

Upton, Dell

1986 America’s Architectural Roots: Ethnic Groups That Built

America. New York: Preservation Press.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Ofﬁce of Solid Waste and

Emergency Response

1995 Planning for Disaster Debris. U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency, Washington, DC.

Weaver, Martin E.

1997 Conserving Buildings: A Guide to Techniques and Materials,

rev. ed. New York: Preservation Press.

Whiffen, Marcus

1993 American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles, rev.

ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Wright, James D., Peter H. Rossi, Sonia R. Wright, and Eleanor

Weber-Burdin

1979 After the Cleanup: Long-Range Effects of Natural Disasters.

Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications.

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Articles

Alderson, Caroline and Paul Westlake, Jr. and Bayard Whitmore

2004 “Perimeter Security Retroﬁtting for Historic

Buildings,” Association for Preservation Technology, Vol.

XXXV, No. 3:37-47.

Burby, Raymond J., Peter J. May, and Robert C. Patterson

1998 “Improving Compliance with Regulations: Choices

and Outcomes for Local Government,” Journal of the

American Planning Association, 64(3).

Dessauer, Peter F., and David G. Wright

2001 “Disaster Preparedness During Construction in

Danger Areas,” Cultural Resources Management, Vol. 24,

Number 8:19-21. National Park Service, Washington,

DC.

Eck, Christopher R.

2000 “Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water—Historic Preservation

Disaster Planning in Miami-Dade County, Florida,”

Cultural Resources Management, Vol. 23, Number 6:11-

13. National Park Service, Washington, DC.

Estes, Judith

2000 “Disaster Preparedness—How Ready Are You?,”

Cultural Resources Management, Vol. 23, Number 6:14-

16. National Park Service, Washington, DC.

Gardner, David

2004 “The Federal Emergency Management Agency and

Its Role in Historic Preservation,”

Association for

Preservation Technology, Vol. XXXV, No. 1:49-53.

Goldenberg, Nancy

2004 “Repairing Blast Damage at the South Portico of the

California State Capitol,” Association for Preservation

Technology, Vol. XXXV, No. 3:31-36.

Innes, Judith E.

1996 “Planning through Consensus Building: A New View

of the Comprehensive Planning Ideal,” Journal of the

American Planning Association, 62(4):460-72.

Look, David W. and Dirk H. R. Spennemann

2000 “Disaster Management for Cultural Properties,”

Cultural Resources Management, Vol. 23, Number 6:3-5.

National Park Service, Washington, DC.

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2001 “Disaster Preparedness, Planning, and Mitigation,”

Cultural Resources Management, Vol. 24, Number 8:3-4.

National Park Service, Washington, DC.

Martin, Mary Catherine and Lila King

2000 “A Lesson Well Learned—New Methods of Disaster

Preparation for Atlanta’s Fox Theatre,”

Cultural

Resources Management, Vol. 23, Number 6:17-19.

National Park Service, Washington, DC.

Ohlsen, Christine and Claire B. Rubin

1993 “Planning for Disaster Recovery,” MIS Report, Vol.

25, Number 7. International City Management

Association, Washington, DC.

Park, Sharon and Claire Schoﬁeld Mastroberardino

2004 “Guidance for Security Enhancements to Historic

Buildings,” Association for Preservation Technology

Bulletin, Vol. XXXV, No. 1:3-12.

Roy, Charity

2001 “Disaster Recovery, Developing a Plan,”

Cultural

Resources Management, Vol. 24, Number 8:13-15.

National Park Service, Washington, DC.

Schwab, Jim

1993 “‘Nature Bats Last’: The Politics of Floodplain

Management,” Environment and Development (January/

February):1-4.

1997 “Zoning for Flood Hazards,”

Zoning News (August):1-4.

1998 “Post-Disaster Zoning Opportunities,”

Zoning News

(August):1-4.

Stone, Hollice F.

2004 “Protective Design of Exterior Building Components

in Twentieth-Century Historic Structures,”

Association

for Preservation Technology, Vol. XXXV, No. 1:23-29.

Topping, Kenneth C. and Mark Sorensen

1996 “Building Disaster-Resistant Communities,”

Environment and Development

(May/June):11.

Tweedy, Angela

2000 “Beyond Disaster Response—Public Policy

Challenge of the New Millennium,” Cultural Resources

Management, Vol. 23, Number 6:6-10. National Park

Service, Washington, DC.

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Usman, Lisa

2000 “Mitigation—Fact or Fiction?” Cultural Resources

Management, Vol. 23, Number 6:32-34. National Park

Service, Washington, DC.

Waite, John and Nancy A. Rankin

2004 “Tweed Courthouse: New Approach to Life-Safety

Management in a Landmark Public Building,”

Association for Preservation Technology Bulletin, Vol.

XXXV, No. 1:15-21.

Miscellaneous

1000 Friends of Florida

2001 “Pre- and Post-Disaster Planning for Historic

Resources.” 1000 Friends of Florida Web site. http://

www.1000friendsofﬂorida.org (November 16, 2001).

Federal Emergency Management Agency Publications

1984 Elevated Residential Structures. Federal Emergency

Management Agency, Washington, DC.

1990 Post-Disaster Hazard Mitigation Planning Guidance

for State and Local Governments.

Federal Emergency

Management Agency, Washington, DC.

1994a Typical Costs for Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing

Buildings, Volume 1- Summary, 2nd Edition (FEMA

156), Federal Emergency Management Agency,

Washington, DC.

1994b Typical Costs for Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings,

Volume 2- Supporting Documentation, 2nd Edition,

(FEMA 157), Federal Emergency Management

Agency, Washington, DC.

1995a Mitigation: Cornerstone for Building Safer Communities.

Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington,

DC.

1995b National Mitigation Strategy: Partnerships for Building

Safer Communities. Federal Emergency Management

Agency, Washington, DC.

1996 Guide for All-Hazard Emergency Operations Planning.

Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington,

DC.

1997a A Guide to Federal Aid in Disasters. Federal Emergency

Management Agency, Washington, DC.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

1997b Multi-Hazard Identiﬁcation and Risk Assessment: A

Cornerstone of the National Mitigation Strategy.

Federal

Emergency Management Agency, Washington, DC.

1997c Report on Costs and Beneﬁts of Natural Hazard Mitigation.

Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington,

DC.

1998 Homeowner’s Guide to Retroﬁtting (FEMA 348) and

Protecting Building Utilities From Flood Damage

(FEMA

312), Federal Emergency Management Agency,

Washington, DC.

2000a Planning for a Sustainable Future. Federal Emergency

Management Agency, Washington, DC.

2000b Prestandard and Commentary for the Seismic Rehabilitation

of Buildings (FEMA 356-357), Federal Emergency

Management Agency, Washington, DC.

2002 Rapid Visual Screening of Buildings for Potential Seismic

Hazards: A Handbook,

2nd Edition (FEMA 154),

Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington,

DC.

2003 A Guide to the Disaster Declaration Process and Federal

Disaster Assistance. Federal Emergency Management

Agency, Emergency Preparedness and Response

Directorate, Washington. DC. Available online at

http://www.fema.gov/rrr/dec_guid.shtm.

nd Safeguarding Your Historic Site: Basic Preparedness

and Recovery Measures for Natural Disasters.

Federal

Emergency Management Agency, Boston, MA.

Hom, Darrick B. and Chris D. Poland

2003 ASCE 31

Seismic Evaluation of Existing Buildings,

American Society of Civil Engineers / Structural

Engineering Institute, Reston, Virginia.

Kartez, Jack D., and Charles E. Faupel

1994 “Comprehensive Hazard Management and the Role

of Cooperation Between Local Planning Departments

and Emergency Management Ofﬁces.” Unpublished

Paper.

Morton, W. Brown III, Gary L. Hume, Kay D. Weeks, and H. Ward

Jandl

1992 The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation

with Illustrated Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic

Buildings. Government Printing Ofﬁce.

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National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior Publications

1995 The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of

Historic Properties. National Park Service. Washington,

DC.

2000 “Disaster Management” Thematic Issue of

Cultural

Resources Management

, Vol. 23, Number 6. National

Park Service, Washington, DC.

2001 “Cultural Resource Protection and Emergency

Preparedness” Thematic Issue of Cultural Resources

Management, Vol. 24, Number 8. National Park Service,

Washington, DC.

Spennemann, Dirk H. R. and David G. Green

1998 “A Special Interest Network on Natural Hazard

Mitigation for Cultural Heritage Sites,” in Disaster

Management Programs for Historic Sites,

Dirk H. R.

Spennemann and David W. Look, eds. Presentations

from the June 1997 Symposium sponsored by

the National Park Service and the Association for

Preservation Technology, San Francisco, California.

Spennemann, Dirk H. R. and David W. Look, eds.

1998a Disaster Management Programs for Historic Sites.

Presentations from the June 1997 Symposium

sponsored by the National Park Service and the

Association for Preservation Technology, San

Francisco, California.

1998b “From Conﬂict to Dialogue, From Dialogue to

Cooperation, From Cooperation to Preservation,”

in Disaster Management Programs for Historic Sites,

Dirk H. R. Spennemann, and David W. Look, eds.

Presentations from the June 1997 Symposium

sponsored by the National Park Service and the

Association for Preservation Technology, San

Francisco, California.

U.S. Department of Energy

nd “Operation Freshstart: Using Sustainable Technologies

to Recover from Disasters.” http://www.sustainable.

doe.gov/freshstart.

Weeks, Kay D. and Anne E. Grimmer

1995 The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of

Historic Properties with Illustrated Guidelines for Preserving,

Rehabilitating, Restoring, and Reconstructing Historic

Buildings. Government Printing Ofﬁce.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

National Register Bulletins (available from the National

Park Service)

See http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins.htm.

The Basics

How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation

How to Complete the National Register Multiple Property

Documentation Form

How to Complete the National Register Registration Form

How to Prepare National Historic Landmark Nominations

Researching a Historic Property

For information about property types as well as general guidance

and technical assistance for preparing nominations, see http://

www.cr.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins.htm.

Preservation Briefs

See http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/briefs/presbhom.htm.

Preservation Technical Notes

See http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/technotes/tnhome.htm.

Technical Reports

Keeping it Clean: Removing Dirt, Paint, Stains, and Grafﬁti from

Historic Exterior Masonry. Anne E. Grimmer.

Metals in America’s Historic Buildings: Uses and Preservation

Treatments. Margot Gayle, David W. Look, AIA, and John G. Waite,

AIA.

Moving Historic Buildings. John Obed Curtis.

National Trust for Historic Preservation Publications

1993 Information Booklet No. 82: Treatment of Flood-Damaged

Older and Historic Buildings. National Trust for Historic

Preservation, Washington, DC.

1997 Hurricane Readiness Guide for Owners and Managers

of Historic Resources. National Trust for Historic

Preservation, Washington, DC.

2001 Controlling Disaster: Earthquake-Hazard Reduction

for Historic Buildings. National Trust for Historic

Preservation, Washington, DC.

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V. Other Useful Web Sites

FEMA

For information about FEMA funding for stabilization and

treatment of collections and individual objects of exceptionally

signiﬁcant cultural value located within or on the property of

public or non-proﬁt facilities after a disaster, see FEMA’s

Collections

and Individual Objects Policy at http://www.fema.gov/rrr/pa/9524_

6.shtm.

For information on Darlington, Wisconsin’s historic property ﬂood

mitigation efforts, see http://www.fema.gov/regions/v/ss/ r5_n16.

shtm.

For information on HAZUS, see http://www.fema.gov/hazus/.

For information on Milton, Pennsylvania’s planning process for

historic ﬂood-prone properties, see http://www.fema.gov/ehp/

milton.shtm.

For information on safe rooms and community shelters, see http://

www.fema.gov/mit/saferoom.

National Park Service

For information about the appropriate design of additions to

historic buildings, see http://www2.cr.nps.gov/tps/standguide/

rehab/rehab_newadd.htm.

For information on historic contexts, see http://www.cr.nps.gov/

nr/research/contexts.htm and http://www.cr.nps.gov/local-law/

arch-stnds_1.htm.

For State historic preservation plans, see http://www.cr.nps.gov/

hps/pad/stateplans/planlist.htm.

Other

For a copy of Disaster Planning for Florida’s Historic Resources, see

http://www.dca.state.ﬂ.us/fdcp/dcp/publications/historic.pdf.

For a copy of the National Capital Urban Design and Security Plan

(October 2002) see http://www.ncpc.gov/publications_press/

publications.html.

For economic beneﬁts of historic preservation in the

Loudoun County, Virginia’s heritage area, see http://www.

mosbyheritagearea.org/Report/renovate.html.

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STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

To learn more about economic beneﬁts of historic preservation

in the State of Florida, see http://www.ﬂheritage.com/ﬁles/

economic_impact.pdf.

For information on the 113 Calhoun Street Foundation and the

rehabilitation of this historic Charleston, South Carolina, building

as a center for sustainable living, see http://www.113calhoun.org.

To view the artistic Paducah, Kentucky, ﬂoodwall murals, see

http://www.kentuckylake.com/gallery/ontheroad/The%20Wall/

080802wall.htm

To learn more about the American Institute for the Conservation

of Artistic and Historic Works (AIC) guidelines for selecting a

qualiﬁed conservator, see http://aic.stanford.edu/public/select.

html. For a complete list of AIC online publications, including

those pertaining to disaster response and recovery, see http://aic.

stanford.edu/library/online/index.html.

For information on the care and treatment of cultural resources

damaged through disasters, see the CoOL Web site at http://

palimpsest.stanford.edu.

For the H. George Friedman, Jr. postcard collection and Decatur,

Illinois, Transfer House, see http://www-faculty.cs.uiuc.edu/

~friedman/decatur/Decatur.htm.

For additional information about Maryland’s building

rehabilitation code, see http://www.dnr.state.md.us/education/

growfromhere/LESSON15/MDP/SMARTCODE/SMARTCODE00.

HTM.

For additional guidance regarding New Jersey’s building

rehabilitation code, see http://www.state.nj.us/dca/codes/rehab/

index.shtml.

c-1

Version 1.0 May 2005

appendix c

worksheets

Worksheet #1 Expand the Planning Team

Worksheet #2 Determine Extent and Value of Historic

Properties

Worksheet #3 Inventory Historic Property and Cultural

Resource Assets

Worksheet #4 Determine Community Value for Historic

Property and Cultural Resource Assets

Worksheet #5 Estimate Total Losses for Historic Properties

and Cultural Resources

Worksheet #6 Identify Alternative Mitigation Actions for

Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Worksheet #7 Evaluate Alternative Mitigation Actions for

Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Worksheet #8 Prioritize Alternative Mitigation Actions for

Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

Step 2 of Getting Started (FEMA 386-1) discusses establishing a planning team with a broad range of backgrounds

and experiences represented. This worksheet suggests additional individuals, agencies, and organizations that should be

included on the team to address historic properties and cultural resource considerations in the hazard mitigation planning

process. State organizations can be included on local teams when appropriate to serve as a source of information and to

provide guidance and coordination.

Use the checklist as a starting point for expanding your team.

Worksheet #1 Expand the Planning Team phase

Date: _______________________________________ step 2

Specialists for Historic Properties and

Cultural Resource Preservation On Team Add to Team

Archeologist

 

Architectural Historian

 

Archivist (State/Local)

 

Business/Development Organizations for Historic Commercial Districts

 

Collections Manager

 

Historian

 

Historical Society (State, Regional, Local)

 

Historic Preservation Architect

 

Historic Preservation Planner

 

Historic Restoration/Rehabilitation Professional

 

Librarian

 

Museum Director or Specialist

 

Non-proﬁt Historic Preservation Organization

(name)________________________________________________________________

 

State Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer

 

Tribal Historic Preservation Ofﬁcer

 

Worksheet #2

Determine Extent and Value of Historic Properties

phase

Date: _______________________________________ step 3

Fill in Columns 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, and 11. Fill in Columns 4 and 10 after completing Worksheet #3. Divide Column 1 by Column 2 and multiply by 100

to calculate the percentage of properties in the hazard area (Column 3). This process can be used to determine the percent value of properties within the

hazard area (Column 6), the percentage of historic properties in the community (Column 9) and their percent value (Column 12).

Type of

Structure

Number of Properties Value of Properties Number of Properties Value of Properties

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7 Column 8 Column 9 Column

Column

# of Historic Properties in Hazard

Area

# of All Properties in Hazard Area

% of Properties that Are Historic

$ Value of Historic Properties in

Hazard Area

$ Value of All Properties in Hazard

Area

Property Value of Historic Properties

as % of Total Property Value

# of Historic Properties in

Community or State

# of All Properties in Community or

State

% of Properties that Are Historic

$ Value of Historic Properties in

Community or State

$ Value of All Properties in

Community or State

Property Value of Historic Properties

as % of Total Property Value

Residential

Commercial

Industrial

Religious/

Non-proﬁt

Gov’t

Education

Total

Inventory Historic Property and

Worksheet #

3 Cultural Resource Assets (page 1 of 3) phase

Hazard: __________________________________ Date: _____________________________ step 3

Make a copy of a blank worksheet for each hazard of concern. Fill in the name of the hazard and the date. List the name

and address of vulnerable historic properties and cultural resources in Column 1. For each property/cultural resource (row)

ﬁll out Columns 2 to 10 to complete the information about the asset. For Columns 11 to 15, use results from Worksheet #5

to ﬁll in the applicable columns. For Column 16, use the ranking from Column 7 of Worksheet #4. See the Building Data

Requirement table below to determine what additional columns to add to this worksheet, depending on the hazard.

Examples of the types of information to ﬁll in for Columns 3, 5, and 6:

Column 3: Type of Property/Resource (include, but not limited to, buildings, structures, objects,

sites, and districts)

Column 5: Structural System (e.g., concrete, wood frame, and steel)

Column 6: Primary Material(s) of Property/Resource (e.g., brick veneer, concrete, and plaster)

Building Data Requirements by Hazard

Building Characteristics Flood Earthquake Tsunami Tornado

Coastal

Storm Landslide Wildﬁre

Building Type/Type of Foundation

   

Building Code Design Level/Date

of Construction

     

Roof Material

  

Roof Construction

  

Vegetation



Topography

   

Distance from the Hazard Zone

    

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7 Column 8 Column 9

Name and Address of

Asset Subject to Hazard

Date of

Construction/

Creation

Type of

Property/

Type of

Resource

Square

Footage

Structural

System

Primary

Material(s)

of Property/

Resource

Current

Function/Use

Current

Condition

Is Owner

Interested in

Mitigation?

(Yes/No)

Inventory Historic Property and

Worksheet #

3 Cultural Resource Assets (page 2 of 3) phase

Hazard: __________________________________ Date: _____________________________ step 3

Column 1 Column 10 Column 11 Column 12 Column 13 Column 14 Column 15 Column 16

Name and Address of

Asset Subject to Hazard

(same as previous page)

Level of Property

Vulnerability (High,

Medium, Low)

Loss to

Structure ($)

Loss to

Contents ($)

Loss of

Function or

Use ($)

Displacement

Cost

Total Loss for

Hazard Event

Level of Community

Value for Ranking

Purposes (High,

Medium, Low)

Inventory Historic Property and

Worksheet #

3 Cultural Resource Assets (page 3 of 3) phase

Hazard: __________________________________ Date: _____________________________ step 3

Name and Address of

Asset

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7

Historic

Designation

(National Register,

Local Landmark,

etc.)*

Geographic

Context of

Signiﬁcance

(National, Tribal/

State, Local)

Level of

Signiﬁcance

(High,

Medium, Low)

Public

Sentiment

(High,

Medium, Low)

Economic

Importance

(High,

Medium, Low)

Degree of

Integrity (High,

Medium, Low)

Total Level of

Community

Value (High,

Medium, Low)

Determine Community Value for Historic Property

Worksheet #

4 and Cultural Resource Assets phase

Date: _______________________________________ step 3

List the name and address of vulnerable historic properties and cultural assets. For each asset (row), ﬁll in Columns 1 to 6. Deﬁne High, Medium,

and Low for Columns 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 at the bottom of this worksheet (optional). Fill in Column 7 by qualitatively adding Columns 3 to 6. Enter

the results of Column 7 in Column 16 of Worksheet #3.

*The designation level does not automatically correlate to the level of community value for ranking purposes.

Estimate Total Losses for Historic

Worksheet #

5 Properties and Cultural Resources phase

Hazard: __________________________________ Date: _____________________________ step 4

Make a copy of this worksheet for each hazard of concern. Note the date and the hazard at the top of the worksheet. List

each historic property or cultural resource asset. For each asset (row) calculate the structure, contents, function, and

displacement losses. Enter each loss and total loss on Worksheet #3, as indicated.

Name/

Description of

Structure

Structure Loss

Structure

Replacement

Value ($) X

Percent

Damage

(%) =

Loss to

Structure

(Worksheet 3,

Column 11)

X =

Total Loss to Structures

Name/

Description of

Structure

Loss of Function Cost

Average

Daily

Operating

Budget

($) X

Functional

Downtime

(# of days)

Total

Function

Loss ($)

(Worksheet

3, Column

13)

X =

Total Loss of Function

Contents Loss

Replacement

Value of Contents

(Professionally

Appraised for

Historic Contents) X

Percent

Damage

(%) =

Loss of

Contents ($)

(Worksheet 3,

Column 12)

X =

Total Loss of Contents

Displacement Cost

Displace-

ment

Cost per

Day

($) X

Displace-

ment

Time =

Total

Displacement

Cost ($)

(Worksheet 3,

Column 14)

X =

Total

Displacement Cost

Structure Loss

Content Loss

Function Loss

Displacement

Cost

(Worksheet 3,

Column 15)

Total Loss

for Hazard

Event

Identify Alternative Mitigation Actions for

Worksheet #

6 Historic Properties and Cultural Resources phase

Hazard: __________________________________ Date: _____________________________ step 2

Fill in the goal and its corresponding objective developed in Step 1. Use a separate copy of this worksheet for each objective.

Make sure you note the sources of information you consulted in identifying alternative actions. Use Worksheet Job Aid

#1 as a starting point for identifying potential mitigation actions.

Goal:______________________________________________________________________________________________

Objective:___________________________________________________________________________________________

Alternative Actions

Sources of Information

(Include sources you consulted for

future reference and documentation.)

Comments

(Note any initial issues you may want to

discuss or research further.)

10.

Have you considered alternative mitigation actions from other mitigation action categories? Do those options have

negative impacts to historic properties or cultural resources? Among the categories below, check off the ones that apply to

this objective.

Prevention

Property protection

Structural diversions



Public education and awareness

Natural resource protection for historic landscape features

Offsetting the impacts of mitigation actions on historic resources



Identify Alternative Mitigation Actions for

Worksheet #

6 Historic Properties and Cultural Resources phase

Worksheet Job Aid #1: Alternative Mitigation Actions by Hazard (page 1 of 2) step 2

Job Aid #1 from FEMA 386-3, Developing the Mitigation Plan: Identifying Mitigation Actions and Implementation

Strategies has been included in this guide for your convenience. You can use this job aid when ﬁlling out Worksheet #6.

This job aid shows you at a quick glance the types of actions that can address the selected seven hazards. A description of

each action is included in the glossary in Appendix A of FEMA 386-3.

Alternative

Mitigation

Actions

Prevention

Building codes

Coastal zone

management regulations

Density controls

Design review standards

Easements

Environmental review

standards

Floodplain development

regulations

Floodplain zoning

Forest ﬁre fuel reduction

Hillside development

regulations

Open space preservation

Performance standards

Shoreline setback

regulations

Special use permits

Stormwater management

regulations

Subdivision and

development regulations

Transfer of development

rights

Floods

              

Earthquakes

          

Tsunamis

          

Tornadoes

    

Coastal Storms

             

Landslides

            

Wildﬁres

           

Property Protection

Public Education

and Awareness

Natural Resource Protection

Alternative

Mitigation

Actions

Acquisition of hazard-prone

structures

Construction of barriers around

structures

Elevation of structures

Relocation out of hazard areas

Structural retroﬁts

(e.g., reinforcement, ﬂoodprooﬁng,

storm shutters, bracing, etc.)

Hazard Information Centers

Public Education and Outreach

Programs

Real Estate Disclosure

Best Management Practices (BMPs)

Dune and beach restoration

Forest and vegetation management

Sediment and erosion control

regulations

Stream corridor restoration

Stream dumping regulations

Urban forestry and landscape

management

Wetlands development regulations

Floods

              

Earthquakes

      

Tsunamis

         

Tornadoes

   

Coastal Storms

           

Landslides

          

Wildﬁres

        

Emergency Services Structural Projects

Alternative

Mitigation

Actions

Critical facilities protection

Emergency response services

Hazard threat recognition

Hazard warning systems

(community sirens, NOAA

weather radio)

Health and safety maintenance

Post-disaster mitigation

Channel maintenance

Dams and reservoirs

Levees and ﬂoodwalls

Safe room/shelter

Seawalls/bulkheads

Floods

        

Earthquakes

     

Tsunamis

       

Tornadoes

      

Coastal Storms

         

Landslides

     

Wildﬁres

     

Identify Alternative Mitigation Actions for

Worksheet #

6 Historic Properties and Cultural Resources phase

Worksheet Job Aid #1: Alternative Mitigation Actions by Hazard (page 2 of 2) step 2

Evaluate Alternative Mitigation Actions for

Worksheet #

7 Historic Properties and Cultural Resources phase

Date: _______________________________________ (page 1 of 3) step 2

Fill in the goal and its corresponding objective. Use a separate worksheet for each objective. The considerations

under each criterion are only suggestions—you may revise these to reﬂect your own considerations.

For each objective, ﬁll in the alternative actions you listed under that objective in Worksheet #6.

For each consideration for each action, indicate a plus (+) for favorable and a minus (-) for less favorable.

When you complete the scoring, minus signs will indicate gaps or shortcomings in the particular action, which can be

noted in the Comments section. For considerations that do not apply, ﬁll in N/A for not applicable. Leave a blank only if

you do not know an answer. In this case, make a note in the Comments section (page 3 of this worksheet) of the “expert”

or source to consult to help you evaluate the criterion.

Goal:________________________________________________________________________________________________

Objective:_____________________________________________________________________________________________

STAPLEE Criteria (Considerations)

Alternative

Actions

(Social) T (Technical)

(Administrative)

(Political)

(Legal)

(Economic)

(Environmental)

Community Acceptance

Effect on Segment of Population

Technical Feasibility

Long-Term Solution

Secondary Impacts

Stafﬁng

Funding Allocated

Maintenance/ Operations

Political Support

Local Champion

Public Support

State Authority

Existing Local Authority

Potential Legal Challenge

Favorable Beneﬁt-Cost Ratio

Contributes to Economic Goals

Outside Funding Required

Effect on Land/ Water

Effect on Endangered Species

Effect on HAZMAT/ Waste Sites

Consistent with Community

Environmental Goals

Consistent With Federal Laws

Adverse Effects to Historic

Properties and Cultural Resources

10.

Evaluate Alternative Mitigation Actions for

Worksheet #

7 Historic Properties and Cultural Resources phase

(page 2 of 3) step 2

Alternative Actions Comments

10.

Evaluate Alternative Mitigation Actions for

Worksheet #

7 Historic Properties and Cultural Resources phase

(page 3 of 3) step 2

Prioritize Alternative Mitigation Actions for

Worksheet #

8 Historic Properties and Cultural Resources phase

Date: _______________________________________ step 2

List the Alternative Mitigation Actions, in order of priority. Identify the goal(s) and corresponding objective(s) each

action addresses, and note the sources of information for easy reference and any comments or issues to keep in mind when

implementing the action.

Alternative Actions

(In Order of Priority)

Goal(s) and

Objective(s)

(From Worksheet #6)

Source(s) of

Information

(From Worksheet #6)

Comments

(From Worksheets #6 and #7)

10.

d-1

Version 1.0 May 2005

appendix d

answers

to review

tests

Phase One Answers

Steps 1-3, Page 1-12

Phase Two Answers

Step 3, Page 2-28

Best answer: c., the library. This building provides a

valuable community service, is listed in the National

records.

Next best answer: a., the block of bungalows. Although some

of the houses have been altered, the block as a whole is

important as an example of buildings that reﬂect a prominent

architectural style of the early 20th century. In addition, they

are important because of their association with a prominent

local architect.

Last in the hierarchy: b., the privately owned house. Although

this building is more signiﬁcant than any single bungalow,

it is just one historic property and therefore would rank

lower in the hierarchy than an entire block of architecturally

signiﬁcant buildings.

STATE AND LOCAL MITIGATION PLANNING how-to guide: Historic Properties and Cultural Resources

d-2

Step 4, Page 2-38

Phase Three Answers

Step 1, Page 3-5

Step 2, Page 3-35

Step 3, Pages 3-40