In the wake of a disaster, and as part of the process for the individual, business, municipality, or provincial or territorial government to begin to repair and rebuild, damaged or impacted assets and infrastructures undergo a damage assessment.
A damage assessment is a structured process used to identify, document, and evaluate the severity and extent of damage to assets, infrastructure, buildings, natural systems, and other resources.
Post-disaster damage assessments are critical for informing recovery decisions, insurance claims, and provincial/territorial and federal disaster assistance programs. Currently, there is no consistent approach for conducting these assessments, which vary between provinces/territories and often vary from one community to another. The lack of standardization results in inconsistencies, inefficiencies, critical information not collected that causes financial issues later, and delays at the most critical of times when Canadians are trying to recover from a disaster.