Peter “Pete” Killcommons is a member of the American Telemedicine Association. Outside of his role as CEO of Medweb, Peter Killcommons has participated in disaster response in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Haiti, Peru, and Honduras.
The impacts of climate change have resulted in a substantial increase in the occurrences of disasters like flash floods, landslides, tornados, and hurricanes. Between 2013 and 2023, approximately 88.5 percent of counties in the United States announced that they experienced a natural disaster. So, it is important to pay more attention to methods to help mitigate the impact of disasters.
Mitigating the effects of natural disasters means that governments and disaster response organizations take the necessary steps to reduce the impact of a disaster while ensuring that the same does not happen in the same magnitude in the future. Unlike other phases of disaster response, mitigation involves a more proactive approach, as an organization must put measures in place to reduce casualties and vulnerabilities in the case of an emergency. These measures include adopting building codes that make disaster response easier. It might also involve enacting policies encouraging people to build with fire-retardent materials.
