County kicks off hazard mitigation planning
Nearly two dozen elected officials, school administrators and first responders participated in the first of four planning meetings addressing the Grimes County Hazard Mitigation Plan.
Nearly two dozen elected officials, school administrators and first responders participated in the first of four planning meetings addressing the Grimes County Hazard Mitigation Plan.
Elected officials, first responders and others in key administrative roles in Grimes County assembled at the Navasota Center Thursday, Jan. 20, to begin the process for updating Grimes County’s Hazard Mitigation Plan which expired in 2018.
This was the first of four meetings which will wrap up in August so the Plan can be presented to the Texas Department of Emergency Management (TDEM) and the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) for approval by the end of 2022. Grimes County is the plan holder, and the participating jurisdictions are the cities of Anderson, Bedias, Iola, Navasota, Plantersville and Todd Mission.
Facilitating Thursday’s meeting was Shane Porter, Project Director with Atkins North America, Inc. Additional Atkins staff and TDEM reps participated remotely. Porter defined hazard mitigations as “any sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate the longterm risk to human life and property from hazards.”
According to Porter, the key objectives are getting the plan updated, maintaining mitigation funding eligibility for Grimes County and the municipalities, identifying potential projects in each community, promoting public awareness and being within state and federal compliance.
Porter said, “What we’re going to be doing is collecting information to do a risk assessment, and once we have those hazards identified, what are the risks that are as sociated with those specific hazards? From there we’ll do a capability assessment, really a gap analysis.”
He continued, “What is key to the whole thing is the plan adoption. The participating municipalities will need to, by their own councils, adopt a plan into their own elements.”
Categories and strategies of hazard mitigation to be addressed during planning are prevention, property management, natural resource protection, structural projects, emergency services and public awareness and education. Project tasks include risk and capability assessments - identifying hazards, assessing vulnerability and measuring capability to implement hazard mitigation activities.
It was clarified that while Grimes County is the plan holder and funding the 25% match, the jurisdictions adopting the plan by resolution will be able to apply for grant funds individually.
It was also noted that time spent on the grant by each participant is considered an in-kind contribution which go toward the County’s match.
Meetings are planned for April, June and August with the April and June steering committee meetings open to the public.