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Hazard Mitigation
Background
Through a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), SOCPA is leading the creation of a comprehensive, multi-jurisdictional hazards-mitigation plan for the County and its municipalities.
Onondaga County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan Mission: protect the health, safety, property, environment and economy of the communities within Onondaga County by partnering to identify and reduce our vulnerability to natural hazards in a proactive and efficient manner.
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The creation of this plan will allow the County and participating municipalities to be eligible for future mitigation funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This is an opportunity for the County to create a detailed plan that will address a variety of potential hazards that could affect some or all of our citizens.
The goal of the plan is to identify projects that can reduce damages from future natural hazards. The plan will include a risk assessment and a hazard-mitigation strategy. The primary hazard in Onondaga County is flooding, but other potential hazards to be analyzed include severe storms, severe winter storms, landslides, and wildfire.
The study will focus on existing and future buildings, and infrastructure and critical facilities that might be impacted. Infrastructure includes power-generation facilities, water utilities, roadways, railroads and communication systems. Critical facilities include shelters and hospitals.
A series of public meetings will be part of the plan development process, both to solicit public comment and to present the draft plan to residents and local officials.
General Information
Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000
The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA 2000) is federal legislation that establishes a pre-disaster hazard mitigation program and new requirements for the national post-disaster Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). DMA 2000 encourages and rewards local and state pre-disaster planning, promotes sustainability, and seeks to integrate state and local planning with an overall goal of strengthening statewide hazard mitigation planning. This enhanced planning approach enables local, tribal, and state governments to articulate accurate and specific needs for hazard mitigation, which results in faster, more efficient allocation of funding and more effective risk reduction projects.
What is Hazard Mitigation?
Hazard Mitigation is any action taken to reduce the loss of life and property by lessening the impact of disasters (natural, technological and man-made). It is often considered the first of the four phases of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.
Mitigation measures fall into the following six general categories:
Prevention: Achieved through planning and zoning, open space preservation, and development regulations, building codes, storm water management, fire fuel reduction, soil erosion, and sediment control.
Property Protection: Achieved through acquisition, relocation, storm shutters, rebuilding, barriers, flood proofing, insurance, and structural retrofits for high winds and earthquake hazards.
Public Education and Awareness: Achieved through outreach projects, real estate disclosure, hazard information centers, technical assistance, and school age and adult education programs.
Natural Resource Protection: Achieved through erosion and sediment control, stream corridor protection, vegetative management, and wetlands preservation.
Emergency Services: Achieved through hazard threat recognition, hazard warning systems, emergency response, protection of critical facilities, and health and safety maintenance.
Structural Projects: Achieved through dams, levees, seawalls, bulkheads, revetments, high flow diversions, spillways, buttresses, debris basins, retaining walls, channel modifications, storm sewers, and retrofitted buildings and elevated roadways (seismic protection).
What is a Hazard Mitigation Plan?
FEMA defines a Hazard Mitigation Plan as the documentation of a state or local government's evaluation of natural hazards and the strategies to mitigate such hazards.
Hazard mitigation planning is the process of determining how to reduce or eliminate the loss of life and property damage resulting from natural hazards. Section 322 of the DMA 2000 specifically addresses mitigation planning at the state and local levels. FEMA has promulgated hazard mitigation planning regulations pursuant to the DMA 2000. These regulations identify four essential phases to mitigation planning: 1) organize resources, 2) assess risks, 3) develop mitigation plan, and 4) implement mitigation plan and monitor progress.
Onondaga County is preparing a Multi-Jurisdictional All-Hazard Mitigation Plan. The Plan will demonstrate the County's and participating jurisdictions' commitment to reducing risk and serve as a guide for decision makers as they commit resources to minimize the effects of natural hazards.
How Does the Plan Benefit Onondaga County?
A hazard mitigation plan will assist Onondaga County with the following:
- An increased understanding of natural hazards the County faces.
- Development of more sustainable and disaster-resistant communities.
- Eligibility for federal funds for pre-disaster mitigation planning (DMA 2000).
- Partnerships that support planning and mitigation efforts and may offer potential financial savings:
- Flood Insurance premium reductions
- Broader resources for funding of mitigation projects
- Enhanced benefit-cost ratios for COE projects.
- Reduced long-term impacts and damages to human health and structures, and reduced repair costs.
Proactive mitigation leads to sustainable, more cost-effective projects. By contrast, reactive mitigation tends to lead to the "quick fix" alternatives; it simply costs too much to address the effects of disasters only after they happen. A surprising amount of damage can be prevented if the County anticipates where and how disasters will occur, and takes steps to mitigate those damages.
Steering Committee
The role of the Steering Committee is to provide guidance and direction to the planning effort and to ensure the resulting document will be embraced by each participating jurisdiction. The Steering Committee will provide leadership, oversee the planning process, and act as the point of contact for all participating communities and the various interest groups in the planning area. The makeup of this committee was selected to provide a cross section of views to enhance the planning effort and to help build support for hazard mitigation.
Planning Partnership
The Onondaga County Hazard Mitigation Planning Partnership consists of members of the Steering Committee along with representatives from each participating jurisdiction. Each jurisdictional representative serves as the point of contact for their community, and is responsible for assuring that the interests and concerns of their community are represented in the planning process.
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