Local debris management planning and FEMA policies on disaster recovery in the United States

Disaster debris management can be time-consuming and costly. Past research suggests that the presence of pre-disaster debris management plans promotes effective and efficient debris operations, which ultimately leads to a speedier recovery. In spite of the importance of debris management planning, there has been little research on the consistency between local plans and federal policies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) developed its second Pilot Program in 2013 to provide guidance for planning and managing debris after disasters. This program provides communities with a set of required plan components. Based on a sample of 38 debris management plans, this study analyzes the extent to which debris management plans are in compliance with the guidance put forth by the Pilot Program. The counties in this study received FEMA major disaster declarations between 2011 and 2016. Inferential statistics suggest that the sample is representative of the larger population of counties that had disaster declarations and debris management plans in place before the disaster occurred. After the plans were evaluated, they were ranked and divided into clusters in order to better understand the relationships between federal guidance and local debris management planning. While the majority of plans mentioned most of the components, few included substantial detail and examples. Plans were most lacking in components related to force account labor responsibilities and compliance with environmental and historic regulations. This study also found that plans with higher-scoring components had more detailed guidance in FEMA's 2007 and 2016 Public Assistance and debris management guides than plans with lower-scoring components.