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National Outreach Strategy and Community Engagement

2010 National Flood Conference April 14, 2010

Presented by: Vince Brown, Courtney Partlow

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Agenda

• Introductions• Risk MAP overview• Risk communication’s role in Risk MAP• Risk MAP’s national and project-level outreach

strategies• Risk MAP “products” • Discussion: how we can help each other

communicate about risk

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Risk MAP Overview

Through collaboration with State, Local, and Tribal entities, Risk MAP will deliver quality data that

increases public awareness and leads to action that reduces risk to life and property

• Provides more accurate flood maps, risk assessment tools, and outreach support by watershed

• Uses latest technologies to provide intuitive, usable risk information

• Enables informed local planning and decision making

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Risk Communication’s Role within Risk MAP

• Risk MAP helps communities and individuals make informed decisions

• Results in ability to better:

Identify risks

Assess risks

Plan to reduce risk• Accomplished through effective risk

communication

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Risk Communication Components

• National Risk Communications• Provides foundation for project-level communications

• Project-Level Risk Communications• Tailored communications supporting individual Risk

MAP projects

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Messages and Tactics

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National Outreach Strategy

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National Outreach Objectives

• Lay the groundwork for Regional and project-level risk communications

• Raise public awareness and understanding of risk• Establish common, base level of risk awareness

nationwide

• Develop communication framework to underpin all Risk MAP outreach activities

• Target audiences• Messages that resonate• Tactics to deliver those messages

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Target Audiences

• Elected State, local, and tribal officials • Business community• Public sector land use planners• Floodplain/Stormwater managers and

NFIP Coordinators• General public

• Believers• Non-believers• Defiant

• Economic authority members• Emergency managers• State hazard mitigation officers• REALTORS® and real estate agents• Architects, engineers and contractors• Insurance companies/agents (working

with FloodSmart)• Claims adjustors

• Land developers• Residential and commercial lenders• Flood zone determination companies

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Key Message Guidelines

• At the core of all messages:• Know your risk

• Reduce your risk

• Tell others

• Tailor messages to ensure relevance to audience• Focus on empathy, backed by science• Use language/words/concepts that the audience

understands

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Man on the Street

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National Tactics

• Tactics specific to each target audience and presented within the National Outreach Strategy

• For majority of audiences:• Web 2.0: Facilitate interactive information sharing and

collaboration online (e.g., online communities, social-networking sites, blogs)

• Media Relations: Proactive, consistent, and timely outreach to national media

• Youth/Young Adult Engagement: Engaging primary and secondary school students to help influence behaviors of older adults

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National Evaluation

To evaluate the success of the national outreach efforts, we will:• Conduct a baseline survey to identify current awareness and

understanding levels of state/local officials and the general public

• Conduct annual tracking surveys to track progress

Additional, ongoing evaluation will include:• Media analysis • Web statistics

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Status of National Outreach Strategy

• Strategy finalized in 12/09• Target audiences, messages, tactics used to inform

development of project-level communications• How risk communication is built into each Risk MAP

project

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Messages and Tactics

Risk CommunicationsProject-Level Risk Communications

Community Engagement Strategy

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Objectives and Guiding Principles

• Objectives:• Establish coordinated, integrated, and regular

communication throughout project• Build local capability to communicate about risks

• Guiding principles:• Engage communities early and often• Agree upon and document project outcomes and

responsibilities• Coordinate with other programs operating within the same

community• Leverage associations to provide a third-party perspective• Use local media and language that people understand

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Community Engagement Strategy Process

• Process:• Developed community engagement strategy

highlighting all touchpoints along project lifecycle

• Creating tools and templates to support each touchpoint

• Collaboration with FloodSmart, CRS, planners, dam safety, grants, others

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Community Engagement Lifecycle

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Community Assessment

• Template to be completed by project teams before scoping to provide details on:

• Local communications capabilities• Mitigation plan status• Recent flooding events• Existence/status of dams and levees• Key demographics • Likelihood of contentious response to mapping process• CRS status and number of current flood insurance policies

• Informs development of project communications plan and CRS, dam safety, and planning engagement

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Media Kit for Project Launch

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• Provides customizable and effective tools to help media create a fair/informed story

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Community Outreach Plan

• Template to be completed jointly by project team and community

• Provides a roadmap for communicating about risk to constituents

• Likely to include outreach to insurance community and individuals regarding flood insurance

• Will ensure a mix of tactics to provide a “surround sound” effect

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Messages and Tactics

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Informing Local Decisions

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Risk MAP Products

• Updated DFIRM/FIS• Risk Assessment Suite

• Watershed Flood Risk Report• Changes Since Last Map• Contributing Factors

• Risk Assessment Database• Multi-Frequency Depth & Water-Surface

Elevation (WSE) Grids• HAZUS Risk Assessment data

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DFIRM/FIS

Short-term objectives• Better align DFIRM/FIS tables• Streamline text and allow searches• Improve user guidance• Multi-color DFIRMs

Long-term objectives• FIS reports will continue to be provided• Database-driven• On-demand updating and delivery• Ability to pull all FIS information related to

an area of interest (e.g., political boundary, watershed)

Fulfills regulatory requirements and supports the NFIP

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Allows communities to access, in one place, all flood risk information related to their community and watershed as a whole

Watershed Flood Risk Report

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Highlights differences between effective and new study

Changes Since Last Map

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Changes Since Last Map Effective Map New Map % ChangeLand Area within SFHA (sq. mi.) 1.88 1.59 -15.4%Number of structures within SFHA (est.) 48 41 -14.6%

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Depicts reason for changes to DFIRM

Changes Since Last Map (cont.)

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Changes Since Last Map (cont.)

Depth changes Water Surface

Elevation Locally Provided

Structure Data

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Helps homeowners better understand their risk and make more informed decisions; feeds into Benefit Cost Analyses

Multi-Frequency Depth Grids

Frequencies Delivered: 10%, 4%, 1%, 1% confidence interval, 0.5%, and 0.2% Annual Chance

10% Annual Chance Flood 1% Annual Chance Flood

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Percent Chance of Flooding Over 30 Years

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Helps communities better understand factors contributing to their risk, and therefore take more effective mitigation actions

Contributing Flood Hazard Factors

Highlights areas of concern identified during scoping and engineering

Sources:• FEMA data (e.g., claims,

policies)

• Past flood events

• H&H results

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Annualized Loss Estimate (ALE)• Provided everywhere

Basic HAZUS Risk Assessment• Provided for new/updated study areas• Supplemented by ALE in additional areas• Based on new study depth grids• Uses default HAZUS data

HAZUS Risk Assessment Enhancements• Provided where risk and data availability

align• Uses locally-provided infrastructure data

HAZUS Risk Assessment

Incorporates information from the built environment to give communities a more accurate depiction of their risk

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Provides access to data sets to support assessment, planning, and mitigation efforts

Risk Assessment Database

• Multi-frequency depth grids

• HAZUS risk assessment

• Digital data highlighting the changes since the last map

• Digital data highlighting contributing factors and areas of interest

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Discussion Topics

• What would make it easier for you to be able to talk about risk with your clients?

• Samples:• Engage agents earlier in process• Providing easy access to Risk MAP products

• How can insurance agents help Risk MAP better understand and address individual concerns?

• Sample:• Use insights from direct public interaction to inform risk

communications

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