Developing a flood mitigation plan is beneficial for your community because it locates areas with flood problems, identifies courses of action to reduce the risk, and establishes a process to implement and review the plan as future conditions change. Thus, it is a major step toward reducing flood damages in a community.
A completed, approved flood mitigation plan is designed to be a planning tool which identifies community-supported, cost-effective, damage-reducing projects whenever funds become available. A mitigation plan is also a sign that your community is willing to address its flood problems. Because of this, a community with a mitigation plan may receive priority for disaster assistance money as Federal budgetary constraints continue to become more of a concern.
Also, more federal agencies are requiring some sort of flood planning document before funding a flood-related project. For example, if your community seeks a flood control structure through the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), new guidance under section 202 (c) of the Water Resources Development Act of 1996 (WRDA) requires that, "The non-federal interest must prepare a floodplain management plan designed to reduce the impacts of future flood events in the project area." The process of developing the USACE floodplain management plan is very similar to the flood mitigation plan you would need to complete for the FMA and CRS programs. Thus, by completing a flood mitigation plan, you may qualify your community for more than one Federal flood mitigation program.
So enough about the benefits of developing a flood mitigation plan. What is involved with the development of a plan?
Before getting into the planning process, it should be mentioned that the citizens of a community are actively involved in the decision-making process from the very beginning. In fact, FMA Program Federal guidelines require it!. All of FEMA's mitigation programs encourage local input because of the experience many communities have had in dealing with "big government" coming in and telling them what needs to be done. We can't pretend to know the subtle variations about the flood situations in Scottsbluff, South Sioux City, Rulo, or any other city of village while sitting behind a desk in Lincoln. ALL mitigation is LOCAL, and the local citizens are the flood experts.
THE PLANNING PROCESS
With the assistance of citizens, elected officials,
floodplain and emergency managers, and State flood
program coordinators, the first step in developing a
flood mitigation plan is to determine your community's
goals and objectives related to its flood situation.
Goals - "What do we want to do?"
Examples of goals might be to keep the business
district economically viable during a flood or to
ensure connectivity and public safety in case part of
your town would be isolated during high water. Another
goal could be simply to reduce flood damages and risk
to human safety during a flood.
Objectives - "How will we do it?"
Objectives are activities which could be done to
accomplish the identified goals. For example, if a
goal is to reduce flood damage, objectives might be
to acquire structures located in the floodplain or
to develop stricter
floodplain development standards in order to ensure
that no future development is placed in harms way. It
is important to remember that any unpopular objectives
can later be dropped from consideration - remember,
this is the community's plan, and nothing should
go into it which will be resented down the line.
Risk identification - "What is our vulnerability?"
In order to determine the best possible courses to
address your community's flood problems, it is first
necessary to understand what is at risk. This can be
done in a variety of ways, but is essentially the same
process. If your community has a recent FEMA flood map,
every structure in the floodplain must be determined and
the following information chronicled for each (why they
are important is explained below):
It may be possible that your community does not have a FEMA flood map which delineates the 100-year flood. Or if your community does have a map, perhaps it is old or some flood control work has been done since the map was completed. In this case, in order to truly understand your community's flood risk, a reassessment of the floodplain should be done. This will entail engineering work which can be very expensive depending on the amount of work necessary. However, planning funds may be available in order to first determine the current extent of the 100-year flood; then determine your community's vulnerability. This is what was done for the City of Superior's FMA Program planning grant.
Since engineering work was mentioned, now would be the best time to mention that a certified surveyor or engineer should be the person who determines the lowest-entry and first flood elevations of the structures in the floodplain. If you have a community engineer on staff or retainer, this would be the best person to use. Otherwise, FMA planning grant funds could be used for this process.
DETERMINING MITIGATION PROJECTS
You should now have an idea about the number of
structures at risk in your community. What can be done
to protect them or what can be done to reduce the
amount of damages in your community? This is another
decision-making time when the public and local officials
determine which courses of action are acceptable. It is
best to have a brainstorming session to determine as
many possible mitigation alternatives as possible -
unacceptable choices will be removed through later
processes. But there is a wide range of
mitigation options to choose from - both structural and
nonstructural. It is important to always keep in mind
where potential funding for these projects might come
from; for example, FEMA will not fund large structural
projects. In addition, these
projects must also prove to be cost-effective, not
affect historic structures, and not
have detrimental impacts on the environment, so let's
discuss these criteria next.
Cost Effectiveness
In order to use Federal funds, it is necessary to show
that any amount of money spent today will end up saving
more money in the future - really, this is what
mitigation is all about. In fact, FEMA estimates that
every dollar spent on mitigation will save two to three
dollars in future expenses, whether it be for damaged
homes, disaster assistance, or
National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims. So
how can you determine if a mitigation project is
cost-effective? To get a basic understanding, look
at the assessed values for all of the structures
in the floodplain you identified according to the list
above. This will give you an idea of the amount of
assets you could ideally protect. This will also aid
in whittling down the number of mitigation alternatives.
For example, let's say that at a public meeting, the group determines that, among other projects, they would like a dry dam above town or an acquisition project. For the sake of argument, let's say that there are 20 homes are located in the floodplain and each one has an assessed value of $30,000. This means that the entire amount of assets at risk is $600,000. Now let's say that a consulting company estimates the cost for the dry dam at $4,000,000. This means that the dry dam could be tossed out right away because it would cost much more than the assets it would protect. On the other hand, since the acquisition project would be voluntary and could be used to target specific homes, chances are it would be much more cost-effective. When determining the cost- effectiveness of a project, a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) is performed.
In order for FEMA to fund any project, it must have a BCA ratio of at least 1.00 (where the money spent equals the money saved in the future). Even though an acquisition project may have a higher ratio than other alternatives, if it is not over 1.00, it probably will not be funded.
In the analysis of an acquisition project, FEMA has specific benefit-cost modules to use. This is where the structure type becomes important (mentioned as "optional" above) because different construction will have different flood vulnerabilities. For example, a one-story house without a basement will have a different amount of damages as one with a basement. Other types of structures are two-story (with or without basement), split-level (with or without basement), and mobile home. The computer program compares the level of flooding to the first floor of the house, then computes a damage curve and determines the benefit-cost ratio.
Historic Preservation
Before Federal money is used to mitigate structures,
the State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) must
reply in writing that the project will not impact any
historic buildings. The SHPO will look through a
database of structures on the list of historic places,
and if there are no historic buildings, the SHPO will
write a letter saying it is okay to proceed.
Environmental Impacts
Naturally, Nebraska and FEMA do not want to be found
liable for harming the environment through any actions.
This is not typically a problem, but according to the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a letter from
agencies who determine environmental impacts will be
necessary. Probably one of the most common environmental
problems is acquiring property with underground storage
tanks.
Plan Implementation
Now you have determined your community's flood
vulnerability and you know which projects which have
been proposed are also cost-effective. There's your
plan! The next step before completion of the plan,
however, are to determine the best way to implement the
plan and then to have the community's elected board of
officials adopt it. In order to implement the plan,
you need to determine which agencies have funds available
for the cost-effective projects you now have. Then you
need to determine application deadlines for those funds
and to submit applications accordingly. Writing your
implementation procedures is one of the most vital
inclusions in your mitigation plan. Having an "Action
Plan" which identifies timelines and personnel to
accomplish your projects is a good idea.
Plan Adoption
But as great as this whole process is, it doesn't mean
anything if your elected board of officials (i.e.,
City, Village, County Board) does not adopt the plan as
an official document
for your community. The Board should also agree to
revisit the plan every year or every two years to
assess if goals and objectives have changed or if some
projects have been completed and others need to be
included. The way it is designed, a flood mitigation
plan can fit into a
community's comprehensive plan and is meant to be an
adaptable and flexible plan if any conditions change.
A mitigation plan follows a logical course of reasoning and requires some decision-making throughout the process in order to ensure that, once adopted, it will continue to be a popular tool used to reduce flood damages in your community. It does not require a great deal of effort to complete, but it will require some time to attend public meetings and to review the plan, etc.
The Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) program has planning funds available to assist communities with 75% of the costs associated with the development of a flood mitigation plan. The remaining 25% must come from a non-federal source, which could be the State, Natural Resource District, your community, or other source. The goal of the FMA program is to reduce claims made against the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). With this goal in mind, one additional requirement for the FMA program which has not yet been mentioned is that every structure mitigated using FMA funds must have a NFIP policy.