Hazard Vulnerability Analysis

The prevalence of natural disasters and civil hazards necessitates utilizing a common structure for identifying a community's risk, vulnerability, and preparedness.  Every community is different, so it is critical that we identify hazards that are most likely to affect Peoria County.  By conducting risk and hazard vulnerability assessments, we can prioritize our planning efforts.  This process provides a framework for us to prioritize preparing for emergencies.  

Risk assessments provide information about what hazards are likely to occur in Peoria County and answer the question, "What could happen to adversely impact Peoria County?"   More specifically, this assessment identifies and characterizes the hazards that may affect the community such as:

• Natural Disasters - naturally occurring incidents such as blizzards, earthquakes, flooding, ice storms, pandemic, severe thunderstorms, and tornadoes
• Technology Hazards - such as hazardous materials incidents (fixed and transportation), information technology failures, and utilities outages
• Human-caused - accidents with infrastructure or transportation, intentional acts such as active assailant incidents or cybersecurity threats

Cascading emergencies can occur when one incident triggers another.  For example a tornado that creates fires from a hazardous materials release at a damage facility.  This cascade of events is something that should be considered during community planning efforts.

A hazard vulnerability analysis (HVA) includes information about how often each hazard is likely to occur and how severe the impact.  The HVA helps answer, "How and where could each hazard affect Peoria County?"  The HVA helps us evaluate how the hazard identified could affect Peoria County (e.g., buildings, infrastructure, and populations).