Disaster Resilience
Disaster resilience is the ability to survive, adapt, and eventually thrive after a disaster of any type or severity. Disaster-resilient communities can withstand and quickly recover from catastrophic events without experiencing long-term disruptions to the economy or way of life. Through the Your Utah, Your Future Survey, four out of five Utahns chose a scenario for our future in which Utah’s disaster resilience improves dramatically. More than half chose the scenario where almost all unreinforced brick buildings are retrofitted, building codes are upgraded as soon as possible to strengthen new buildings, new homes and buildings are generally not built in disaster-prone areas, and infrastructure is upgraded to be disaster resilient.
Learn more about the Your Utah, Your Future vision for the future of disaster resilience →
The Wasatch Front has a 47% chance of experiencing a 6.75+ earthquake within the next 50 years. Many factors, including the four-year retrofit of the Salt Lake Temple and the national FEMA exercise taking place in 2021, are drawing attention to the potential impact of a major earthquake in Utah. Understanding the level of risk, Envision Utah is gearing up for a disaster resilience project to identify key strategies for improving our resilience and mobilize outreach efforts to educate the public. We are currently meeting with stakeholders who are working on this issue to learn what is being done and identify champions in this effort. Formal kick-off for this project is scheduled for early 2020.
Click here to read BYU law professor and disaster expert Lisa Grow Sun’s response to the 5.7 magnitude earthquake that occurred near Salt Lake City on 3/18/20.
Click here to learn more about the impacts of a major earthquake.