Emmet County's updated Hazard Mitigation Plan is nearly finished. How to give input
PETOSKEY — An updated Hazard Mitigation Plan for Emmet County that has been years in the making is approaching completion.
Stephanie Marchbanks, community planner with Networks Northwest, presented the final draft of the Hazard Mitigation Plan to the Emmet County Board of Commissioners during their meeting on March 13.
'About three years ago we applied on behalf of Emmet County for a FEMA grant to update your Hazard Mitigation Plan for the county,' Marchbanks said. 'We consider three types of hazards, natural hazards are the focus. We look at risk regarding flooding, regarding winter weather, shoreline erosion, all that stuff."
'There's also included in this plan, which really wasn't included before, what we consider technological hazards,' Marchbanks added. 'Those are things like a hazardous materials fixed site or transportation incident, a structure fire or a major build infrastructure failure or an energy shortage. It also considers things that are human-induced hazards, these are things like your public health emergencies with the pandemic, a cyberattack or major network disruption, or a civil disturbance.'
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The plan includes input from a wide variety of community stakeholders, including county officials, local tribal leadership, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, the Emmet County Road Commission, local law enforcement and more. An online survey early in the process also gathered public feedback.
'All together, the main portion of the document is what we call the hazard analysis,' Marchbanks said. 'For every hazard we have a description of the hazard, the location of impact, ... history of previous occurrences, extent of impact to people, property, the economy and the environment. We consider the probability of a future event based on that information, and also an overall vulnerability assessment for that specific hazard.'
Some key issues for the county were also identified in the plan.
'Flood mitigation and coastline resiliency was a big one,' Marchbanks said. 'There is a proposed strategy in the plan that talks about the Tannery Creek area at U.S. 131 and Bear Creek Township, how that area has been historically prone to some major flooding. There's a proposed project in the strategies to hopefully open up that culvert and mitigate any future flooding there, which would be great.'
Many municipalities in the county took part in the planning process, but not all. Marchbanks said they intend to reach out again to try and have as much participation as possible.
'A lot of the outer townships haven't participated so far, and it's important because FEMA requires local governments to have evidence of participating in development of the plan if they want to apply for a FEMA grant for hazard mitigation in the next five years,' she said. 'So if they're not considered a participant then they can't adopt the plan at the local level and they can't apply for a grant in the future.'
The commissioners approved setting a public hearing for their April 7 meeting to address any final questions about the plan or hear any additional comments.
The Hazard Mitigation Plan is open for public comment online from March 13 to April 7 on the Networks Northwest website, with a link also available on the Emmet County website. Comments can also be sent to stephanie.marchbanks@networksnorthwest.org.
— Contact Jillian Fellows at jfellows@petoskeynews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Emmet County sets April 7 public hearing for Hazard Mitigation Plan
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