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Sullivan County revisits hazard mitigation plan

SULLIVAN COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Sullivan County officials, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) and community members met on Wednesday to discuss the county's updated five-year mitigation plan. Every county in Tennessee has a hazard mitigation plan to prepare for natural disasters. This is the first revision to the plan since Hurricane Helene. Michael Lamphere, TEMA's East Regional Planner, said it is essential to anticipate all the possibilities of the future. 'Hazard mitigation is basically how I looked at what to look at,' he said. 'It is think of the worst case scenario, the worst disaster that you could think of is going to happen to your community or your jurisdiction. How would you prevent that from actually causing damage and saving lives and property? What would you do to mitigate that today?' Lamphere said a hazard mitigation plan helps create less financial strain on the community. 'Basically, for every dollar that is spent on mitigation, it saves between 6 and $8 on future damage,' Lamphere said. 'So if something happened today, if you actually spent that money ahead of time to prepare for that, it would save a lot of money in the future if a disaster were to hit because you helped prepare it, mitigate that disaster before it actually happened.' Sullivan County Emergency Management Agency Director Jim Bean said that reviewing the plan at least every five years ensures that the most critical projects remain a priority in disaster recovery efforts. 'The biggest reason to update, at least every five years, is, number one, not to go stale with your project,' Bean said. 'When I first came into the job, a little over ten years ago, we were repeating projects that hadn't been completed in the past five years. So we wanted to make sure, you know, this wasn't something that fell to the wayside. And, so we would create a list of projects, and we worked toward them in those five years.' The hazard mitigation plan only protects against natural disasters, not human-caused issues. 'Floods, landslides,' Bean said. 'Earthquakes, strong winds, tornadoes, all those, all the other natural disasters, and other than manmade, and nothing, specifically public health related like we went through two years ago.' Once the plan is submitted, FEMA has 60 days to review and accept it. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.