NEW ORLEANS - James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), urged large and small city mayors attending the 1999 Annual Conference of Mayors in New Orleans to take immediate action to save lives and reduce damage from 1999 hurricane and other disasters.

"Last year natural disasters cost 600 American lives," Witt said at the Sunday, June 13 plenary session of the Annual Conference of Mayors . AA storm can damage a building. It can rip through a town. But we know how to keep it from taking a child’s life. And that is too precious a resource to waste when we have the technology to save it.

AI know you sought office not just to hold it," he said, Abut to harness it- because you had a vision for your cities and wanted to lead them toward it." But virtually every day natural disasters are turning visions into nightmares.

"Making your community disaster-resistant is not just an opportunity, but an obligation," Witt said. "We do not have the technology to prevent disasters, but we absolutely have the technology to prevent disaster damage.

"This is your obligation to your communities who bear the brunt of disaster, to a nation who bears the cost of helping you rebuild and, just as much, to yourselves, leaders whose ambitions for your Administration could be overtaken by a single storm."

Witt has launched a major effort at FEMA to change the way America deals with disasters. Through Project Impact: Building Disaster Resistant Communities, mayors and other local officials are helping their communities come together to take measures to prevent damage from disasters before they strike instead of picking up the pieces afterward. There are 118 Project Impact communities nationwide.

Project Impact encourages communities to work hand-in-hand with the environment, harnessing rather than undermining the natural resources that can be the best weapon in disaster prevention, Witt said. "Project Impact isn’t just about preventing disaster, but creating opportunity," he added.

"Flood mitigation and protection of natural resources protect the local economy, not just...local property. We’re educating coastal residents about disaster prevention. We’re helping to evaluate the relationship between inland and coastal environments and storm surge reduction. We’re identifying natural resources that can be restored to make communities more resistant to hurricanes, floods and other disasters."

Witt noted that FEMA is working with many partners including Fannie Mae, to offer affordable loans for families to make their homes disaster-resistant; the Economic Development Administration, to enhance local economic planning after a disaster; and the U.S. Small Business Administration, which is targeting Project Impact communities to help businesses disaster-proof their operations.