Use our programs, research and guidance to improve your community’s ability to prepare and recover.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders
FEMA helps communities rebuild in a more accessible, inclusive and equitable way. To help guide these efforts, FEMA has published “Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders.”
Download the Guide
Community Programs & Guidance
Integrated Public Alert System
Learn how to bring this alert system to your community.
Community Lifelines
FEMA uses lifelines to identify and track critical government and business functions that are essential to human health and safety or economic security. Explore lifelines to understand how FEMA prioritizes response.
Environmental Planning & Historic Preservation
Find out how to protect, strengthen, or rebuild historic properties and the environment.
Hazardous Response Capabilities
Explore resources to help prepare for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear hazards.
Planning Guides
Read guidance to engage the whole community in thinking through the lifecycle of a potential crisis.
Urban Search & Rescue
Learn about this federal task force that conducts search and rescue operations and find out how to join.
Tools and Libraries
Case Study Library
Browse case studies and best practices from across FEMA's areas of expertise.
Recovery and Resilience Resource Library
Research multi-agency federal disaster recovery resources geared toward pre-disaster recovery planning or in the wake of a disaster.
Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT)
Examine the interplay of census data, infrastructure locations, and hazards, including real-time weather forecasts, historic disasters and estimated annualized frequency of hazard risk, using RAPT's free GIS web map.
Strategic Foresight at FEMA
Download the Strategic Foresight 2050 Toolkit to help emergency managers integrate future-thinking into their organizations. The toolkit contains information on programming a strategic foresight initiative as well as guidance for leveraging the research products, workshop materials and approaches used at FEMA.
Including People with Disabilities in Disaster Operations Course
Take a course designed for all personnel involved in disaster operation, with strategies on how to include people with disabilities during mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery efforts.