Damage assessment involves the systematic evaluation of the scope and impact of loss, suffering, and potential harm to a community following a natural, accidental, or human-caused disaster. This process aims to determine the nature and extent of damage caused by the event, providing crucial information for response and recovery efforts.

Conducting damage assessment following an incident to produce data to help decision makers at the local, state, and federal levels do the following:

• Identify unmet needs of survivors and communities
• Evaluate impact for the public, elected officials, and the media.
• Engage state and local recovery partners for resources
• Justification for disaster declaration
• Evaluate the applicability of state or federal supplemental assistance by providing data regarding
  • Damage to the private sector- Individual Assistance
  • Damage to the public sector- Public Assistance

Damage assessment provides estimates on the number of displaced persons, persons in shelters, persons injured, fatalities, and structural losses.

Structural losses are evaluated on 4 criteria:

• Destroyed: Total loss, permanently uninhabitable
• Major: uninhabitable, extensive repairs required that will take more than 30 days to complete
• Minor: uninhabitable, repairs can be completed in less than 30 days
• Affected: no structural damage, habitable without repairs

Damage assessment also provides information regarding future hazard mitigation projects.

If you are a resident, please reach out to your city, township, or village for assistance.

A community damage assessment can be completed using the form below after an incident.

https://crisistrack.juvare.com/public/summitOH/request.html

For questions, please email EMAPlans@summitoh.net.