Webster County Emergency Management is seeking the public’s input regarding updating its hazard mitigation plan.

An initial public kickoff meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday at the Iowa Central East Campus, 2031 Quail Ave., in the Triton Room. Visitors should enter through the south entrance.

Dylan Hagen, Webster County emergency management coordinator, said the goal is to get input from local residents on any questions or concerns they have.

“Then the city or county could potentially work toward improvements as far as critical infrastructure or emergency preparedness type things,” Hagen said. “Basically to have input from an outside perspective so it’s not just local leaders making the decisions.”

The five-year hazard mitigation plan identifies hazards that may affect Webster County and develops strategies to reduce future disaster impacts.

“Basically, you identify a hazard or a risk and how you are going to mitigate that,” Hagen said.

For instance, he said the biggest risk for most residents is severe weather and its potential to cause power outages, flooding or other damage.

In such scenarios, Hagen said there are often many “trickle-down effects.” If a community were without power for an extended period of time, he said waste water and drinking facilities could be affected.

“So simply having a generator at one of those facilities could mitigate that from happening in the future,” Hagen said.

With the help of JEO Consulting Group, Hagen said Webster County Emergency Management will be working with cities, counties and school districts to create a risk assessment, a vulnerability assessment and mitigation strategies.

He said there is also the potential to receive federal funding based on the county’s plan. Having an approved hazard mitigation plan is a requirement of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for jurisdictions to become eligible for several grant funding options.

“If we have a federal or presidential disaster declaration anywhere in Iowa, it opens up the hazard mitigation funding. It allows for communities to apply for any project in that plan,” Hagen said. “The important thing is we’re not sitting around waiting for a disaster to happen.”

He said these plans also help guide communities. For instance, if a town wants to get a generator for the community center, they can plan to budget for it over the course of two years to achieve that.

In the past, he said a couple of communities have been able to purchase outdoor warning sirens with hazard mitigation funds.

Hagen said Thursday’s meeting is the first of several over the course of the coming year.

“We will have subsequent meetings after this meeting to determine how often we’ll meet to update the plans,” he said.

An agenda is available upon request from Webster County Emergency Management at dylan.hagen@webstercountyia.gov or by calling 515-573-1403.

For more information, visit: https://jeo.com/webster-county-ia-hazard-mitigation-plan/