Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Counties begin process to update Region 6 mitigation plan
WORLAND – Emergency management directors from Big Horn, Park, Washakie and Hot Springs counties met in a conference call led by Hazard Mitigation and Emergency Management Consultant Jeff Brislawn with Wood Environment and Infrastructure Solutions to hold their first of three planning meetings for the Region 6 Hazard Mitigation Plan.
Other stakeholders in these counties were also in attendance for the online meeting Tuesday, Jan. 12.
According to Brislawn, this plan update began as a part of the state’s goal to update each region’s individual hazard mitigation plan along with the state’s plan which was updated last year.
To begin the presentation Brislawn discussed the importance of updating the plan as costs are rising in recent years when responding to natural disasters and mitigation is an important part in helping reduce the amount of disasters to come.
The current plan in Region 6 was approved in April of 2017 in accordance with the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, but is required to be updated every five years. The goal is to get the plan updated and approved by the end of 2021 in order to avoid any rush to update the plan at the beginning of next year.
Once the plan is updated it must be approved by the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and adopted by jurisdictions in the region.
The purpose of the plan is to reflect the counties and the communities that are affected and help formulate plans in order to help reduce the risk of disasters unique to each town and county affected.
The current region mitigation plan lays out a process that involves steps such as organizing the plan, involving the public, identifying the hazards and then creating and adopting the plan in each area.
The hazard analysis and risk assessment section of the plan is set to identify different hazards such as flooding, earthquakes, avalanches, drought along with other risks that impact each community. The severity of the hazards are gauged for each area and how frequently they may occur should no more mitigation efforts occur.
Updating this also includes assessing infrastructure, such as bridges, to ensure that the infrastructure will be secure should a disaster occur.
Along with the update, there will be a review of the current plan to see if the mitigations and procedures in it have been met in the last four years.
Once a draft is completed it will be open for public comment. The plan will be reworked based on any comments received and taken toward a final draft which will be adopted by each specified body in region 6.