	Introduction

The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act ( P.L. When a major disaster overwhelms a state or tribal nation's response capacity, the state's governor or the tribal nation's chief executive may submit a request for a major disaster declaration. To help evaluate a state or tribal nation's need for assistance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) uses a Preliminary Damage Assessment (PDA) as a mechanism "to determine the impact and magnitude of damage and the resulting unmet needs of individuals, businesses, the public sector, and the community as a whole." Although not explicitly mentioned in the Stafford Act, PDAs play a crucial role in the declaration process. State and tribal governments use information from a PDA to determine whether to request a major disaster declaration and, if so, the basis for that major disaster request. FEMA relies in part on the PDA to provide a recommendation to the President concerning whether a major disaster declaration is warranted and, if so, which types of federal supplemental assistance should be made available. Despite the importance of PDAs in the declaration process, PDA information has only recently been made available to the public. In 2008, FEMA, at the direction of Congress via general provisions in appropriations legislation, began to post PDA reports on its website. In spite of their limitations, PDA reports contain a great deal of information concerning (1) damage estimates; (2) demographic information of the affected area, including percentages of elderly populations and low-income households; and (3) insurance coverage in the area. CRS constructed a dataset using information from PDA reports and coupled that dataset with data on declarations and obligations from the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), through which FEMA funds PA and IA, to analyze the possible use of PDAs in the disaster declaration process. Determinations by the Assistant Administrator for the Disaster Assistance Directorate of the types and extent of FEMA disaster assistance to be provided are based upon findings whether the damage involved and its effects are of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the response capabilities of the state, the affected local governments, and other potential recipients of supplementary federal assistance. Where possible, the following sections also analyze the extent to which each factor seems to influence PA and IA determinations using data from FEMA's publicly available PDA reports. Depending on the nature of the incident, one or more categories of work may be provided through PA.
FEMA considers six factors when assessing whether a governor's or chief executive's request warrants PA:
estimated cost of the assistance; localized impacts; insurance coverage; hazard mitigation; recent multiple disasters; and programs of other federal assistance. FEMA generally relies on two thresholds to evaluate whether to recommend PA. The PDA reports do not provide information about other recent incidents. In the discussions of factors considered for IA in this report, these results will be used for comparison. PDA reports include information on the percentage of low-income and elderly households in the affected community. The type of disaster event may also impact the PDA timeline. Some may argue that using per capita thresholds as a consideration when determining whether an incident warrants PA is consistent with the Stafford Act. If Congress is concerned that the per capita threshold is a poor measurement of state capacity, it could require FEMA to replace or supplement the per capita threshold with another form of measurement. PDA Timelines and Accuracy

PDA reports provide information regarding the length of time between a major disaster request and its ultimate declaration or denial by the President. As discussed in " Preliminary Damage Assessment Timeline ," of the requests for major disaster declarations that were neither expedited nor appealed, 89.8% were decided within a month after requested, 63.7% were decided within two weeks after requested, and 18.5% were decided within the week they were requested.
When a major disaster overwhelms a state or tribal nation's response capacity, the state's governor or tribal nation's chief executive may request a major disaster declaration from the federal government. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act authorizes the President to issue major disaster declarations in response to such requests.
To evaluate a state or tribal nation's need for federal assistance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) uses a Preliminary Damage Assessment (PDA) as a mechanism to determine the impact and magnitude of damage caused by the incident. Although not explicitly mentioned in the Stafford Act, PDAs play a crucial role in the declaration process. State and tribal governments use PDA information as part of the basis for their major disaster request, and FEMA relies on the PDA findings to provide a recommendation to the President concerning whether a major disaster declaration is warranted and what types of federal supplemental assistance should be made available.
More specifically, the PDA provides information about various "factors" which FEMA evaluates to determine whether Public Assistance (PA) is warranted after an incident. For PA, these factors include estimated costs of assistance, localized impacts, insurance coverage, hazard mitigation, recent multiple disasters, and the availability of other federal resources. Similarly, FEMA uses information from the PDA to assess factors that determine whether an incident warrants Individual Assistance (IA) and, if so, which types of IA.
Despite their importance in the declaration process, PDA information has only recently been publicly available. In 2008, FEMA, at the direction of Congress, began to post PDA reports on its website. PDA reports contain information concerning (1) damage estimates, (2) demographic information of the affected area (including percentages of elderly populations and low-income households), and (3) insurance coverage in the area.
This report analyzes a dataset built from 587 PDA documents. It also compares that constructed dataset to a previously constructed dataset of disaster declarations and other data from FEMA regarding obligations from the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), the account from which FEMA provides PA and IA.
In recent years, congressional interest in emergency management has focused on funding, program administration, and program coordination—both among federal agencies and state emergency management agencies. The data from PDA reports informs debates about these policy issues. For example, PDA reports provide insight as to whether FEMA recommendations are applied uniformly to all major disaster requests. Similarly, PDA reports can be analyzed to address congressional concerns over whether PA and IA determinations are systematic and appropriate. More broadly, PDA information can inform the debate over whether federal disaster assistance is being provided for incidents that could be handled at the state, local, or tribal level.
Some of the key findings in this report include
major disaster declarations that authorize PA generally conform with the PA thresholds outlined in regulation; higher percentages of low-income households in a disaster-impacted area seem to influence the decision to authorize IA; of requests that were neither expedited nor appealed, 18.5% were decided within one week, 63.7% were decided within two weeks, and 89.8% were decided within one month; the time between a major disaster request and decision varies based on the amount of PA and IA damage as well as the type of event; and the magnitude of PDA estimates for both PA and IA that under-estimate ultimate obligations is greater than the magnitude of estimates that over-estimate ultimate obligations.
This report concludes with policy observations and considerations for Congress. These considerations include
replacing the per capita threshold used by FEMA to make major disaster recommendations with another form of measurement; requiring PDA reports to include additional information about the incident; taking measures to increase PDA accuracy; and amending Section 320 of the Stafford Act.
This report will be updated as events warrant.