This article analyses China’s disaster management regime at the local level. The article outlines historic disaster management regimes from the pre-imperial era to the present and ends with an analysis of the ongoing campaign for ‘comprehensive disaster relief model communities’. As argued in the article, throughout history Chinese disaster management has been characterized by attempts to combine strong state leadership with active grass-roots participation in disaster prevention and relief work, and different historical circumstances have translated into different kinds of disaster governance regimes with strengths and weaknesses. The current situation is no exception. The current model community drive led by the party-state aims to establish local professional or semi-professional disaster management organizations in every urban community, but leaves the role of civic organizations vaguely defined. While the state’s commitment to local-level disaster management has its strengths, the current ambiguous conceptualization of the role of civil society actors leaves resources untapped.