Identifying the risk

County takes first step in flood mitigation

By Liz Wood

[email protected]

Nearly every community in Carbon County was represented March 4 at the Risk MAP (mapping, assessment and planning) Discovery meeting conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the Jeffrey Center in Rawlins.

Carbon County Management Coordinator John Zeiger said he was very pleased with the turnout at the meeting.

Brooke Buchanan, the senior engineer for FEMA Region VIII, said the Risk MAP Discovery process has several components which include mapping, assessment and planning.

The mapping process includes flood hazard identification while the assessment involves risk assessment tools and products.

Community mitigation plans and actions are also part of the planning process.

Buchanan said the process takes around five years, but in some cases has taken as long as 10 years to complete, depending on the complexity.

The Discovery meeting was the first step in the process.

FEMA had several large maps of the affected communities to identify risk areas in those communities.

After explaining the details of the Risk MAP meetings time line the attendees were asked to identify the risk areas on the maps provided by FEMA.

Prior to the meeting, the initial data collection process had been completed by FEMA where they collected information about the communities in the watershed and developed a draft Discovery Report and Map.

Zeiger told the FEMA representatives that Carbon County is currently working on updating the Hazard Mitigation Plan and that a draft copy will be available at the next Carbon County Council of Government meeting March 18 in Sinclair.

The Hazard Mitigation Plan is a requirement for the Risk MAP Study.

In the next three-to-six months, FEMA will finalize the Discovery Report and Map, then evaluate the findings and potential Risk MAP project.

Zeiger was confident that Carbon County would qualify for the next step.

He will be working closely with Kim Johnson with Wyoming Homeland Security throughout the process.

“(The process) is in FEMA’s ballpark now,” Zeiger said. “With the representation and good feedback we had, we hopefully move forward.”

 

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