PRELIMINARY
DAMAGE ASSESSMENTS
(PDAs)
The
following information was taken from the Washington State EMD
Public Assistance web page.
You
can quickly link to the site with the following link:
PDA
Process and Forms
BACKGROUND
At the
onset of an emergency or disaster, the Washington Emergency
Management Division (EMD) must determine the extent of the damages
that occurred to state and local public facilities. Through
the Preliminary Damage Assessment (PDA) process EMD will obtain
the information necessary to put forth a request through the
Governor to FEMA for a Presidential Disaster Declaration for
Public Assistance.
In order
to accomplish this, at the onset of a disaster state agencies
and county emergency management offices are requested to complete
an initial assessment of the damage sustained by the affected
public agencies in their jurisdictions. The county emergency
management office will coordinate the data collection for their
jurisdiction. The county's public agencies are defined as:
All
local public agencies - cities, towns, utility (water, sewer,
electrical) and other special-purpose districts to include school
districts, Indian tribes, fire districts, and certain private
non-profit organizations.
To prepare
the initial assessment, each public agency is asked to complete
a Preliminary Damage Assessment
Estimates - Site/Category (PA-2) form for each
category (type) of damage caused by the disaster. The cost estimates
from each Category form will be summarized for a total cost
estimate on the Preliminary Damage
Assessment Summary (PA-1).
The intent
of the forms is to depict the magnitude, impact, dollar damage,
and what action is going to be taken to deal with the situation.
Local agencies will forward the worksheets and summary forms
to their county emergency management office for coordination.
Each county
emergency management office will forward the county-wide information
to EMD, Public Assistance Program. The completion of these forms
and the total impact of the damage will help determine whether
a formal Preliminary Damage Assessment should be pursued at
the state level.
The
PDA process is necessary if the state is to request federal
assistance for your jurisdiction. If damage assessment information
is not received in a timely manner, your jurisdiction's information
will not be included in the initial assessment of needs for
public facilities.
As
stated in the beginning, this text, the PDA forms and completion
instructions can be found on the EMD web page at the following
link:
PDA
Process and Forms
Please
address any questions to the Island County DEM office at: dem@co.island.wa.us
