County Begins Investigating Local Hazards
Mitigation plan required to secure FEMA funding
Last updated Thursday, February 3, 2005 10:19 PM CST in News
By Joseph Askins
The Morning News
BENTONVILLE -- Representatives of local governments, schools and businesses have until July 1 to develop a comprehensive hazard mitigation plan for all of Benton County.
Members of the new Hazard Mitigation Planning Team held their first meeting at the Benton County Administration Building on Thursday night to hear a broad overview of the requirements for the hazard plan.
The planning team will be responsible for identifying, assessing and prioritizing hazards in the county and estimating the risks they pose to the county's residents, property and infrastructure, said Jim Dixon, project manager for the Benton County Department of Emergency Management.
The planning team will focus solely on natural hazards such as tornadoes, floods, hailstorms and other severe weather activity, all of which can affect areas throughout the county.
The team will also have to identify hazards peculiar to individual cities, such as the potential for damage to the SWEPCO Dam in Gentry, or a dam breach at Lake Atalanta in Rogers.
Areas likely to experience particular hazards will then be identified on a base map. Dixon said the county's extensive geographic information system map will allow the planning team to transpose hazard information over details such as jurisdiction or property boundaries.
For example, the county's GIS map could calculate areas prone to flood damage simply by entering the amount of rain over a specific period of time.
Once risks are properly assessed, the planning team will highlight facilities at high risk to specific hazards, including schools, hospitals, law enforcement departments and transportation systems, and determine the potential extent of damage to these structures.
The county must develop a hazard mitigation plan every 10 years to qualify for FEMA hazard mitigation funds.
Jim Dixon and members of the planning team will hold public meetings at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport Fire Department on Feb. 15 and the Rogers Police Department on Feb. 17 to enlist community involvement in identifying local hazards.
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