My answer to that question is in an article that I wrote that very night and is now posted on the Emergency Management's website, see Building Disaster Resilience.
I suppose that you can argue all the other things that might contribute to resilience, but I believe it will take a singular focus on mitigation to start to move toward disaster resilience. I see that FEMA is looking to once again have some emphasis in that direction. I would recommend that they start by looking at one of their former programs, Project Impact. You can find more information about that within my linked article above.
