For more than a year city leaders, consultants and a citizens committee have worked to build Leander's Hazard Mitigation Plan, a guide for how the city is preparing for and reducing the risk of threats to the community.
Much of the hazard mitigation document is composed of the citys Community Wildfire Protection Plan, which specifically addresses the city's No. 1 environmental risk, said Bill Gardner, Leander fire chief and emergency management coordinator. If the city adopts the mitigation plan, Leander will become eligible for future funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"By taking the CWPP and integrating it into our mitigation plan and then submitting that to FEMA, that makes those mitigation items available for federal dollars," Gardner said. "It finds a way to start funding our mitigation needs."
The more than 300-page hazard mitigation plan covers topics such as evacuation processes, community shelter options and the probability of natural disasters. The document is in final draft stages and is expected to go to City Council in March for a public hearing and approval, Gardner said.
Approaching the plan
The city began drafting the hazard mitigation plan in January 2014 and hired Langford Community Management Services to help guide the process and submit the plan to FEMA. Planning Consultant Chris Stewart, who partners with LCMS, said the plan was built based on FEMAs standards.
"The hazard mitigation focus for FEMA is ... looking at a broad set of threats and how those pair up to community vulnerabilities. We are looking at everything from flood events to hurricanes, tropical storms, severe storms, tornados, hail, lightning, drought, extreme heat and winter storms," he said. "Wildfire was one hazard that FEMA wants us to look at, but were especially interested in it in Leander because it has had such a tremendous impact on the city as recently as 2011," he said, referring to when wildfires destroyed 26 homes in Leander.
Stewart said he worked with a citizens committee, which includes several members who deal with hazard mitigation in their professions, to assess the risk associated with each type of event. The group also solicited input through an online community survey last spring to understand residents top concerns.
"We did an online survey asking people from the community to comment on their perceptions of what the risks were and how well they felt they were prepared. It matched pretty well to what some of the actual statistics are," Stewart said. "The No. 1 concern was wildfire. The second type of event people are most concerned about was tornado, and we have about a 47 percent annual chance of a tornado occurring somewhere in Williamson County."
Data-driven risk assessment
The city used countywide data compiled by the Texas Geographic Society as a basis for assessing the likelihood of each type of emergency event. Data shows Williamson County residents are among the most equipped in the state to respond to, cope with, recover from and adapt to environmental hazards.
Williamson Countys greatest risk is wildfire, according to the TXGS data, which used historical information from state and federal agencies. The Texas Forest Service tallied 583 Williamson County wildfires from 2005 to 2009, more than any other type of hazard event during any time period measured. The countys wildfire risk is ranked in the top 20 percent of all counties in Texas, and the western portion of the county has a higher probability than the eastern part of the county to experience wildfires.
Flooding, high winds and tornados also ranked among the most probable to occur in Williamson County, according to TXGS data. From 1960 to 2010, the area experienced 43 flood events, 68 thunderstorms with strong winds and 25 tornados. Hail, lightning and extreme drought events all have a mildly high probability of occurring in Leander, according to the data. The area is at moderate risk for experiencing the negative effects of a hurricane as well as extreme heat events. Earthquakes and winter storms were rated among the least likely events to occur in Williamson County compared to other counties in Texas.
"We can look at all of the data and have a good idea of how likely we are to get hit with something, but at end of the day its a matter of statistics before something happens," Stewart said. "And when something does happen, we need to be ready for it."
There are additional risks addressed in the hazard mitigation plan that do not have historical data to predict probability. A public transit emergency, such as a train carrying hazardous materials colliding with a vehicle on the tracks, or a biohazard, such as a flu pandemic, could also occur in the city, Gardner said.
"Mitigation is about asking how do we prevent it," Gardner said. "But acts of God occur, and we cant prevent those. So we have to make sure the next step of mitigation is how you reduce the impact, and thats one of the things weve looked at."
Finding FEMA funding
The city wants to produce a hazard mitigation plan not only to have procedures and guidelines in place in an emergency but also to seek funding from FEMA to mitigate some of the risk, Gardner said.
"When there is a major disaster declaration under the Stafford Disaster Act ... 20 percent of the funding that was made available for that disaster has to become available for disaster prevention or mitigation. Having this mitigation plan, the city becomes available to receive those funds," Gardner said. "By also doing the CWPP, we were actually able to grade areas and define mitigation steps based on the specific area. It gave us a good assessment of our needs for when we make decisions on what we are requesting FEMA funding for."
Beth Schrieber, grant consultant with LCMS, said FEMA grants can range from $200,000 to $2 million and fund various projects or items, such as the purchase of generators or hazardous fuel reduction in wildfire-prone areas.
"If a big disaster event happens, [FEMA] opens up a round of money, not just to those cities that were directly affected by it, but they open it up to the whole state," she said. "As long as you can prove ... that doing the project will actually have a benefit over the cost of the project, it can be considered for funding."
Leading up to the presentation of Leander's hazard mitigation plan to City Council, Gardner and Stewart said they hope residents will become engaged, offer feedback about the plan and consider what their households would do in a wildfire, tornado or other emergency situation.
"This is an opportunity for good, open, honest dialogue," Stewart said. "Maybe its something that sparks conversation within a household or within a neighborhood association or within a business park. In your mind, work through how you would respond in a certain event knowing that other things were being done by the city."
