Public input sought on county hazard prevention plans
County’s proposal is among first to include protecting historic, cultural resources
Charles County is seeking public comments on its blueprint for protecting residents and property from the risks posed by natural and manmade disasters.
The 2018 Charles County Hazard Mitigation Plan outlines the steps that people can take to safeguard against risks to public safety such as droughts, extreme weather, public health emergencies and wildfires.
New to the latest edition is detailed guidance on protecting cultural and historical resources. Charles County is only the second jurisdiction in the state to incorporate such guidance in its hazard mitigation plan.
Michelle Lilly, the county’s chief of emergency management, said that up-to-date hazard mitigation plans are a require
ment for the county to receive federal funding to help residents recover from a disaster.
“We go through this process every five years so that we can identify the hazards that actually affect our county,” Lilly explained. “Then, we do a risk analysis based upon those hazards that allows us to create policies and plans and to outline projects that will help us lower risk and [ensure] that the impact of those hazards to not be as severe as they could possibly be.”
Lilly pointed to the county’s regulations covering residential construction in a flood plain as an example of how an increasing awareness of a particular risk has helped prevent costly damage.
“We now restrict building in flood plains to alleviate flood risks,” Lilly said. “Anything new that is being built must either be out of the flood plain or else elevated to such a height that the impact of a flood is not as bad as if we had allowed it to be built right against the water.”
The county’s Department of Emergency Services was the lead agency in preparing the updated plan, the third since 2006. The department partnered with 16 county and state agencies and the towns of Indian Head, La Plata and Port Tobacco Village to develop it. Representatives from engineering consulting firm Michael Baker International also participated in the review and update process, which began last October.
According to Lilly, individual hazard mitigation plans are tailored to reflect hazards that are particular to a given region.
“For example, here in Charles County, our risk of earthquakes isn’t as great as what you would see out in California, but our risk for hurricanes is much greater,” Lilly said. “So you’ll see that we have a much more developed hurricane plan, while our earthquake plan is not as developed. Whereas in California, their earthquake plans are much more developed and in-depth than their hurricane plans.”
Lilly stressed that the purpose of a hazard mitigation plan is not to address emergency response, but to outline broad plans and policies and to identify ways of preventing risks. It is up to individual agencies to develop response plans based on those plans and policies.
The decision to include a chapter on protecting historical and cultural resources was heavily influenced by recent natural disasters that took a toll on historic buildings, said Cathy Thompson, the community planning program manager for the county’s planning department.
The April 2002 tornado that ripped through La Plata, for example, damaged homes and office buildings dating from the first half of the last century and even earlier. The flood that swept through Ellicott City in July 2016 damaged many historic buildings along Main Street, which were saved from demolition because local preservation experts were able to work alongside emergency response personnel and structural engineers to assess their conditions.
“It helps tremendously if you have some planning in place beforehand to make sure all of the people who need to weigh in are there,” Thompson said.
Thompson said that Charles County is the second county in the state behind Anne Arundel County to develop detailed policies for protecting historic resources like buildings and cultural resources like archaeological sites against floods, erosion, landslides and wildfire.
Charles County has nearly 1,000 recorded archaeological sites, as well as 41 properties that have been entered into the National Register of Historic Places and one National Historic Landmark, the Thomas Stone National Historic Site in Port Tobacco.
“Not all of these sites rise to the priority level, so you really have to go a step further” in developing mitigation strategies for them, Thompson explained.
“It was quite an intense exercise, but it really gave us a feel for what hazards are impacting which resources, and which resources are important enough that we have to put a very high priority on protecting or mitigating them,” Thompson said.
The draft hazard mitigation plan rates Charles County’s resources and capabilities for responding to emergencies and mobilizing resources highly, but noted that its financial ability to mitigate disasters is “more limited,” although it noted that the county’s diverse revenue sources and dedicated budgets for water, sewer and solid waste systems allows it “significant flexibility in financing mitigation projects.”
Lilly said that the public has an important role to play in hazard mitigation.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to engage the public in a subject as dry as hazard mitigation,” she said. “If we can get the public to recognize that these hazards could impact their homes and property, and to identify things that they can do at home and at work to ensure that they and their families are ready to face them, that counts as mitigation too.”
The draft 2018 Charles County Hazard Mitigation Plan is available for review and comment at www.charlescountymdhmpu.com. To review a copy of the draft plan by appointment, contact Michelle Lilly at (301) 609-3429 or LillyM@ CharlesCountyMD.gov.
Public comments will be accepted through Sunday, April 15.