Commissioners review updated county hazard mitigation plan

Highland County commissioners Terry Britton and Brad Roades met with Highland County Emergency Management Agency Director David Bushelman and Rob Guentter of RFG Associates to discuss the county’s revised five-year hazard mitigation plan Wednesday, Nov. 1.

Guentter is a Certified Planner who has been working to develop the new plan, which he said will cover 2024 through 2028.

“A hazard mitigation plan is a required plan, every five years updated, that tries to come up with activities to protect your community from natural disasters, to be better prepared for high winds, flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc.,” Guentter said. “We went through a process to determine what your high risks are and some specific activities on things that were recommended to try to make the community safer, to protect property, to protect human life and to qualify for grant funding to implement some of these activities.”

The plan includes “10 goals and 31 action items which are intended to address and mitigate the loss of property and life because of natural hazards in Highland County,” according to a handout from Bushelman. Guentter said he likes to include “very actionable” suggestions in the plan, not “pie in the sky” ideas, so “there’s a good opportunity to implement a number of them” over the next five years.

To develop the plan, Guentter and Bushelman said they received feedback from “31 local people” representing the county as well as the city, villages, townships and other groups. It was noted by Bushelman that the village of Sinking Spring did not participate, despite multiple attempts to contact them.

Roades asked Guentter to explain “what that means for them” in Sinking Spring.

“It makes it very difficult for them to apply for any funding for pre-disaster activities, like anything in the plan that might affect them,” Guentter said. “There's also a question whether FEMA would help them during a disaster. The line is, if you're not part of a plan, if you have a disaster, you're not helped. Candidly, I think FEMA would still help a community in a disaster, but they're trying to encourage everybody to be part of this proactive planning process. But they do cut themselves off from any pre disaster help.

“They weren’t a part of your current plan either, so there’ll be an eight-year window they’re not part of the plan.”

The group of stakeholders conducted three meetings to develop the plan, according to Guentter, as he thanked everyone, including Bushelman, for their “time and effort.”

“A lot of the plan is built on data, you know — what are the historical events, what has actually happened here in terms of disasters, that can guide us and inform us to what we need to do in the future,” Guentter said.

That included reviewing the National Center for Environmental Information database as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s National Risk Index database, he said.

“A new requirement for this five-year plan was to look at climate resilience and the impacts of climate change on the community,” Guentter said. “The good news is climate change impact here is minimal.”

Guentter added that they reviewed “three criteria available for the impact of climate change: heat, cold and rain,” and while there are some slight changes expected over the next 20 years, they primarily determined the coldest days “won't be as cold, but the [hottest days] will be warmer.” They are also projecting “an inch more rain a year, but three fewer days of rain,” so there is the possibility of more severe weather events.

Included in the plan are a list of priorities for the county, as Guentter said the top five, in order of importance, were adding “emergency backup generators at very specific locations that are identified in the plan; updating some early warning sirens in two key areas; additional public outreach and information so residents can be aware of what to do when a different event might occur; two mobile generators, specifically to use to pump gasoline, if there's power outages; and continuing to expand the MARCS radio tower system.”

According to the handout, the goal is to “purchase and install emergency backup generators for high critical need locations,” including in Greenfield, Leesburg and Hillsboro. The mobile generators are aimed at the north (Fairfield Township) and south (Whiteoak Township) ends of the county. Sirens need to be added in the Lynchburg and Rocky Fork Lake areas, the plan says.

“Some places I find really huge issues that have to be addressed,” Guentter said. “Nothing like that exists here in Highland. There’s no eminent problems or concerns that were identified by the committee, but it's continuing to walk down the path and get these projects done to make your community safer.”

The plan also takes into consideration “vulnerable populations in your county who normally don’t have a seat at the table for these kinds of planning activities,” as Guentter said “the Amish community was identified” as one such group.

“We specifically identified that they tend to not be tied in with our communication network, so awareness of hazards, education of what to do when something happens and being part of that early notification system,” Guentter said. “I think you're going to see a lot more contact between your EMA staff and the elders in that community, so that they're more prepared. Not that there's any capital investment — they can they can fend for themselves — but just having the information so they can protect themselves and their families.”

The plan also includes information on “nine different hazards that were of concern to the county,” Guentter said, including: summer storms (thunderstorms, wind, lightning, hail); winter storms (ice and snow); flooding; landslides/road slips; tornadoes; drought/wildfire; extreme heat; earthquake; and dam failure.

“Dam failure was included because it is a requirement that dams have to be evaluated in a mitigation plan across the country, and it was the lowest priority because there was no real concerns of any dam failure,” Guentter said.

Moving forward, Guentter said he wanted the county to open a “two-week window to accept public comments,” with a deadline of Nov. 17; submitting the plan and any comments to the state; and revising the plan based on the state’s recommendations. Once the plan is finalized, commissioners as well as the county’s municipalities will be asked to “adopt a resolution accepting the plan,” he said.

“I would expect we'd have everything finalized and approved in early 2024,” Guentter said. “And then each year, the plan calls for an annual review.”

The plan will be posted on the commissioners’ website at https://co.highland.oh.us/offices/commissioners.html, or you can contact Bushelman at (937) 393-5880 or dbushelman@highlandcoso.com to receive a copy.

Britton thanked Guentter and Bushelman for their efforts, as he said he believes “we’ve made some strides since” the previous five-year plan.

On a related topic, commissioners voted later in the meeting to take action on one of the topics included in the five-year plan.

Commissioners voted 2-0 to enter a Capital Improvement Project Grant Agreement contract with the Department of Administrative Services, Office of Information Technology, Multi-Agency Radio Communications System Program Office (“MARCS”) for the new MARCS tower in the county, the location of which is still to be determined.

As previously reported, commissioners and Bushelman met with Angela Canepa, the Ohio Department of Administrative Services’ Deputy Director of First Responder Communications Initiatives, Oct. 24. The county has been awarded $750,000 in state funding for the construction of a new MARCS tower, and funding coordinator Nicole Oberrecht said the county is “going to put a local match of $530 [thousand], for a total of $1,280,000” for the project.

Thus far, a site for the tower has not been identified, as their preferred location would be in Marshall Township.

Canepa said last week that “we won't be able to solidify the agreement between” the state and county “until we have the exact location, but I could certainly start on that.” She advised that once a spot is selected, they will also have to do a study on the land, but the county could go ahead and start the Controlling Board funding process.

“We are going ahead with the recommendation of the state to go ahead and file the paperwork for the grant money, so we'll have that,” Britton said Wednesday. “We’re still working on the location, but they're working with us on that to try to get that resolved.”

Also during Wednesday’s meeting:

• Commissioners voted to implement additional changes to the county’s sewer billing and to vacate an alley in Boston, while they also met with county prosecutors to discuss a pending legal issue. Read more at: https://highlandcountypress.com/sewer-billing-changes-alley-closure-leg….

• Commissioners issued a proclamation in honor of Small Business Saturday and met with Highland County Chamber of Commerce representatives to discuss their newest campaign Wednesday, Nov. 1. See the story and photos at: https://highlandcountypress.com/small-business-saturday-moose-loose-cam….