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A Retrievable Legacy for Disaster Mitigation By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed In 1997 James Lee Witt, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), established a pilot program to reduce the human and economic cost of disasters. The purpose: incentivize the government, private sector, and the public to collaborate on the identification and reduction of a community’s most serious natural disaster hazards. That initiative was Project Impact. Seattle in late 1997 was among 7 jurisdictions chosen as a pilot site to demonstrate the effectiveness of Witt’s vision. As a chosen “pilot” jurisdiction, Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management OEM), where [...]