County Working On Mitigation Plan
County Emergency Manager Warren Bogert and Sara Schmidt of SRF Consulting hosted a public input meeting at the Mountrail County South Complex on Tuesday, May 12 to discuss the county’s multi-hazard mitigation plan. They are meeting with the cities within the county to gather input on the plan as they work to update it from the 2020 plan as required. While they have scheduled meetings with many of the cities, they have also hosted open houses like this for some of the smaller cities and their residents.
The plan looks at natural, technological and adversarial hazards and threats. Natural threats include drought, flood, geologic hazards, severe summer weather, severe winter weather, space weather, urban fire and wildland fire. Technological hazards include dam failures, hazard materials releases, and transportation incidents. Adversarial threats include civil disturbance, criminal attack, cyberattacks, infectious disease and pest infestations, and terrorist or nation-state attacks.
The county’s plan is reviewed and updated every five years. The plan allows communities to prepare, plan, mitigate, and even respond to disasters which could affect them.
The plan takes a comprehensive look at all of the things that could happen. It then identifies the priority or risk of the threats and the mitigation strategies that could be implemented. The review also allows those participating to look at how things were rated previously. By going through the plan, some items may be considered as still needed. Others may be identified to be eliminated or reduced in priority. Participants may also have input on items that should be added to the plan.
Each item sets a priority as low, medium or high. It also identifies who would be a lead agency and staff involved, as well as setting target timeframes to complete each of the goals.
Having the plan in place also allows the county to apply for FEMA funds, as well as declare a state of emergency and access other funds.
Cities can adopt the county plans. Some have previously adopted the plan and they will be asked to consider that again.
Once the county’s plan is complete, a final draft will be made available for public review and municipalities will be able to adopt the plan. They would appreciate any public input.
The public can also take the survey on the plan at https://www.surveymonnkey.com/r/Mountrail_Mitigation.