Community discusses natural hazard pre-mitigation planning

Community members gathered at the Hill City Center March 6 for the Pennington County (PC) Natural Hazard Mitigation & Community Wildfire Protection Plan Update meeting. 

Dustin Willett, PC Emergency Management Director, said the turnout was infinitely better than the last time there was a community meeting for a pre-disaster mitigation plan. The management of this plan has been contracted to the Black Hills Council of Local Governments (BHCLG). 

Kailey Snyder, community development/resiliency specialist, said BHCLG is one of six planning districts in the state of South Dakota and serves nine counties and cities within the western side. 

They help with various planning mechanisms, mitigation planning, comprehensive plan work and funding applications among other things. 

Mitigation planning is a FEMA-approved plan and is required to be updated every five years. Snyder said these plans were started in the 1990s and “became a requirement for local governments in 2003 with the passage of the Stafford Act.”

The purpose is to focus on reducing the loss of life, infrastructure and property through planning. 

According to Snyder, some of the main requirements of these plans are to “Identify hazards and their associated risks and vulnerabilities, develop and prioritize mitigation actions and encourage cooperation and communication between all levels of government and the public.” 

Along with this plan, BHCLG is also updating the county’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). The intent is to combine these two plans into one so the CWPP is updated every five years as well. The current CWPP is more than 10 years old, which makes it outdated and difficult to get funding. 

“Mitigation should be thought of as an investment,” said Snyder. This includes protecting community assets, reducing costs of response and recovery and supporting who and what is important in the community. 

The mitigation plan primarily covers natural hazards like wildfires, flooding, hail and summer storms. 

“So what can we do as a community or local government to help lessen the impact?” asked Snyder. 

Some examples of mitigation Snyder gave were, “Adopting building codes, wildfire fuels reduction, education and outreach, constructing a storm shelter and drainage studies.” 

However, Snyder said that mitigation is not “purchasing new fire equipment, disaster preparedness kits or response and recovery.” These things are the next step. 

The process starts with planning. While this is a PC plan, Snyder said all of the cities within PC have agreed to join in and adopt the plan. This allows for a more specific look at each of the cities. 

Next is risk assessment, which identifies community assets, hazards, vulnerabilities and impacts.

“Once we have identified all of our risk areas and vulnerabilities, we need to make strategies to lessen the impact to life, property and infrastructure,” said Snyder. This includes developing mitigation goals and prioritizing those goals. 

When the plan is done, there will be a public review. After these adjustments are made, the plan will go to the state for review. It will then go to FEMA for review. 

“This plan is reviewed through various stages, and it doesn’t get adopted until it gets FEMA’s blessing,” said Snyder. 

This will be the first plan in South Dakota to be presented entirely online with added interaction opportunities. Once the plan is done, communities can work toward implementation. 

Per Snyder, the benefits of the plan “Aligns risk reduction with public activities and decision making, increases awareness of hazards and risks, promotes partnership-building, a community-driven living document, identifies cost-effective actions for risk reduction and focuses on the highest risk.” 

Overall, the mitigation plan should increase resiliency, lessen damage and lead to faster recovery.

Snyder said some of the main hazards addressed are “Agricultural pest and disease, communicable disease outbreak, dam failure, drought, extreme temperatures, flooding, expansive soils, landslides, subsidence, earthquakes, summer storms, tornadoes and straight-line winds, wildfire and winter storms.”

After explaining this, Snyder encouraged the attendees to discuss hazards, concerns, potential risks and vulnerabilities or how to fix problem areas. 

One attendee asked about wildfire evacuation plans since it is supposed to be a dry season. Willett said an evacuation may be amplified through Code Red. Typically these types of life-safety warnings are issued through Willet’s office. The other thing used is wireless emergency alerts. 

Another attendee asked if these alerts would only go to 605 numbers since many people in the Hills have old numbers from previous homes. Willet said wireless emergency alerts would go to anyone in range of the area, including tourists. 

In terms of an evacuation plan, Willet said when you are dealing with something as variable as a wildfire, there are too many pieces to have a set plan. Rather, he recommended having a structure saying who will do what and when to rapidly make decisions, communicate the decisions to the public and provide the public the information they need. 

“It’s a close coordination between the fire fighting resources, the law enforcement recourses and emergency management,” said Willet. 

Evacuation is not mandatory either, and some people need more time to leave than others based on mobility and access to a vehicle. 

Snyder asked if there were areas attendees thought should be addressed to decrease risk and make sure everyone can get out in case of emergency.

Willet clarified emergency alerts and evacuation plans were important, but these things are a response. Mitigation is completely different, said Willet. It covers what can be done today while a fire is not burning, like canopy spacing, removing accumulated fuel on the forest floors and thinning out trees around evacuation corridors. 

“We also need to think about, ‘What can our local government do?’ or ‘What aren’t our local governments doing?’” said Snyder. As an example, she cited subdivisions of 200 homes with one road in or out for miles. Should the road get blocked, people would be trapped on either side. 

One attendee brought up a recent tree thinning that took place in Hill City. With thinning, Snyder said different challenges are involved. Sometimes thinning is restricted based on boundary lines. Some people are for thinning and opt into it, but other people are against it and want the seclusion. 

Willet said this would be a great element to put in the CWPP. Snyder said one of the big things is getting collaboration between local government, private, state and federal. This can be a challenge because of prejudices and politics, she said. Getting everyone together to make a difference is a huge part of this plan as a result. 

Dani Schade said Forest Avenue was a concern. She said there are unrestricted nightly vacation rentals along with full-time residents. There is one way in and one way out on a city gravel road. From a planning perspective, Schade said visitors would be “clueless” should there be a flood or fire.

Lori Miner brought up Bishop Mountain Drive and South Newton Avenue as well. These have culverts over Spring Creek that erode. 

“So if there’s a flood and those culverts go out, I mean you’ve got a significant amount of people stranded,” said Miner. 

Snyder said areas that are constantly getting flooded can be addressed. 

Schade asked, “Is there anything that the county has or that they could put together for private property owners that want to mitigate slash piles? I see a lot of fuel on the ground with slash piles.”

Willet said there is not only guidance on what to do, but there are also cost-share programs to help pay for it. Cities or private properties can benefit from this. 

Miner said one of her concerns is water drainage from rain running down from her property on Bishop Mountain Drive. Because Miner put a culvert under her driveway to keep it from eroding, someone thought it caused their house to flood. 

Miner was concerned “flat-landers” were moving to the area and had no idea how water or fires move. 

“Are there any programs where the city could hold an informational meeting so maybe some of these newer people might get some information on how to protect their property or how they can be safe?” Miner asked.

Snyder said with most of their mitigation plans, BHCLG encourages providing educational materials. She said the county has one of the best websites when it comes to this. 

An attendee asked if there would be any way to mail out a list of resources and recommendations to help people understand how to make hazard plans instead of having a public meeting. 

Willet said the county has looked at direct mailers in the past, but they have not found them to be worth the expense at the moment. The information is out there, but Willet said the public has to actively seek it. 

Another attendee suggested talking to your neighbors about fire safety. 

Synder said it also gets political at a certain point, and Willet agreed that there are a lot of people in this area of the world who do not want to be told what to do. 

Bill Miner asked if there were watershed maps as part of the flood plan because areas do not need to have a water source running through them to have flooding. Allen Gulch Road was brought up for having flash floods. 

Willet said there was not a flood risk map for areas outside of the studied areas. He said creating hydrologic and hydraulic studies for watershed areas is expensive, but South Dakota Silver Jackets through the Army Corps of Engineers has a pot of money available to do innovation mapping of certain areas of concern. 

“So if you have areas that you have seen the historic flooding and issues happen, that’s what we want to capture,” said Willet. 

Snyder wrote down Allen Gulch Road, Bishop Mountain Drive and Smokey Drive as problem areas. 

Major Lake was brought up as a concern as well due to its need to be dredged and the large Canadian geese population. 

For anyone who does not have access to the internet or the PC’s website, Schade said the city has printed copies of all the hazard mitigation plans and things that homeowners and landowners can do at city hall.