EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT association OF TEXAS

The Federal Emergency Management Agency released the latest National Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA). The National THIRA is the process through which FEMA identifies catastrophic threats and hazards, the consequences of those threats and hazards, and the capabilities the nation needs to address those hazards.

The 2019 National Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA): Overview and Methodology is available on FEMA’s website at https://www.fema.gov/national-risk-and-capability-assessment. The document outlines FEMA’s approach to that process, which uses the same standardized impact and target language that states, tribes, territories and members of the Urban Area Security Initiative grant program use for their THIRAs.

For more information on the community THIRA, stakeholders are encouraged to consult the Comprehensive Preparedness Guide 201, 3^rd edition, which outlines the steps in this standardized approach.

FEMA designed the THIRA methodology to support collaboration between state and local governments, federal agencies, and other emergency management entities. Because the National THIRA process described in this document uses the same language as the community THIRA, FEMA and federal departments and agencies will be able to compare state, tribal, territorial, urban area and—eventually—federal and national preparedness estimates against the national-level assessment. This common assessment will allow FEMA and other federal agencies to track progress over time and provide concrete answers in specific, measurable terms to the question: “How prepared is the nation?”