"On November 6, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) launched Project Impact: Building a Disaster Resistant Community, an initiative designed to challenge the country to undertake actions that protect families, businesses and communities by reducing the effects of natural disasters. We've got to change the way we deal with disasters. We have to break the damage-repair, damage-repair cycle. We need to have communities and businesses come together to reduce the costs and consequences of disasters. It is our number one priority at FEMA. Project Impact includes a national awareness campaign, the selection of pilot communities that demonstrate the benefits of hazard mitigation through a partnership approach, and an outreach effort to businesses and communities using a new guidebook that offers a formula for a community or business to follow to become disaster resistant. Rationale: The increasing number and severity of natural disasters the past decade demands that action be taken to reduce the threat that hurricanes, severe storms, earthquakes, floods and wildfires impose upon the economic stability, economic future and safety of the citizens of the U.S. As the federal agency responsible for emergency management, FEMA is committed to reducing disaster losses by focusing the energy of businesses, citizens, and communities in the U.S. on the importance of reducing their 106 Witt, James Lee. "Project Impact: Building a Disaster Resistant Community". Disaster Recovery Journal, Winter 1998/ Accessed at: http: //www.drj.com/win98/witt.htm susceptibility to the impact of natural disasters". (Witt, "Project Impact: Building a Disaster Resistant Community," Disaster Recovery Journal, Winter 1998)