NAVAJO COUNTY MULTI-JURISDICTIONAL

HAZARD MITIGATION PLANNING PROJECT

The following cities, towns, and Indian tribes are currently participating with Gila County to develop a multi-jurisdictional all-hazard mitigation plan for each community:

 What is hazard mitigation planning?

Some Definitions…

HAZARD – A source of potential danger or adverse condition. Hazards include both natural (floods, earthquakes, winter storms, landslides, wildfires, drought, etc.) and human-caused events (hazardous materials, dam/levee failure, terrorism, transportation accidents, biological, etc.).

HAZARD MITIGATION – Any sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk to human life and property from hazards.

PLANNING – the act or process of making or carrying out plans; specifically, the establishment of goals, policies, and procedures for a social or economic unit.

 Why are the communities doing this hazard mitigation planning?

The process of hazard mitigation planning is a very important part of any community’s planning program for sustainability.  For most communities, mitigation programs for hazards that occur infrequently are usually funded and initiated on a post-disaster basis with solutions that are generally reactionary to the most recent event.  This form of hazard mitigation programming is typically more costly, both in property and human losses, on a long-term basis.  Congress recognized the deficiency of the current system and in October 2000, passed the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA2K).  The overall purpose of DMA2K was to establish a national program for pre-disaster mitigation, streamline administration of disaster relief at both the federal and state levels, and control federal costs of disaster assistance.  In general, the DMA2K legislation requires all local, county, and tribal governments to develop a hazard mitigation plan for their respective community in order to be eligible to receive federal pre- and post-disaster mitigation assistance funds.  Each community’s hazard mitigation plan must be submitted to and approved by the State of Arizona and FEMA.  The deadline for obtaining that approval is November 1, 2004.

 How will the plan be developed?

A planning team comprised of planning and engineering representatives from the cities, tribes, and county, as well as public utilities, hospitals, police, fire and sheriff’s departments, and other public and private entities, will be meeting regularly to work through a hazard mitigation planning process that involves the following tasks:

Ø      Identify hazards that may impact or have impacted the community

Ø      Develop a profile of the most relevant hazard events

Ø      Assess Vulnerability to Hazards

Ø      Assess the communities capability to mitigate hazards

Ø      Establish hazard mitigation activity goals and objectives for the community

Ø      Develop hazard mitigation actions and/or projects

Ø      Develop an implementation strategy for the plan

Ø      Write and officially adopt plan

 To view the Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan for the Navajo County area click here.

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