Carroll County’s Hazard Mitigation Plan is set to expire in 2018/19 and Local Assistance Director with Region XII Council of Governments, Chris Whitaker, says this is no different than the other five counties in the region. The plans are updated every five years, and now most of the county-wide plans include all of the jurisdictions within their borders with one exception in this region. This will result in two different applications being filed.
Carroll, Crawford and Greene will be all cities, all jurisdictions. Sac County will just be the rural part of the county and the city of Lake View. Each county’s payment is calculated based on the number of jurisdictions served.
Payment into the program is actually required to take advantage of available federal funds. Whitaker says to be eligible for hazard mitigation project money, the county must have a FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) approved mitigation plan. That gets them in the door and it is why they have been doing them for the past 20 years. He provided some examples of funded projects.
He adds that he would hate to see a missed opportunity to receive some of this funding just because the money isn’t there today. If it is in the plan, it can definitely be up for consideration when federal dollars do become available.
