La Plata County Local Hazard Mitigation Plan

Hazard Mitigation Plan, Volume 1	Hazard Mitigation Plan, Volume 2	Mitigation Workbook, Annex A
Dam Failure
Drought
Flood
GeoHazard
Severe Weather
Wildfire
Winter Storm

The hazard mitigation plan guides county, city and fire protection district staff to protect the people and property in La Plata County from the effects of natural disasters. This plan demonstrates La Plata County’s commitment to reducing risks from hazards through mitigation and serves as a tool to direct county resources to achieve optimum results with available administrative, technical and financial resources.

The term “hazard mitigation” refers to actions or strategies that can reduce or eliminate long-term risks caused by natural hazards. Hazard mitigation planning in La Plata County can produce less vulnerable conditions through smart construction, proper planning of future development and critical infrastructure. Hazard mitigation activities can also reduce risk around residents and infrastructure through a wide variety of mitigation strategies like construction of regional flood control projects or implementing fuel reduction around buildings within high wildfire risk areas.

This hazard mitigation plan provides an explanation of prevalent hazards within the County and how hazards may affect population and property differently across the County. The plan also contains information on natural hazard threats within La Plata County which identifies risks to vulnerable assets (people and property). Most importantly the mitigation strategy presented in this plan responds to the particular vulnerabilities and provides prescriptions or actions to achieve the greatest reduction of vulnerability, which results in saved lives, reduced injuries, reduced property damage, and protection for the environment during a natural hazard event.  In addition, this plan provides county and participating jurisdictions continued access to grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to conduct hazard mitigation activities for county- and city-owned facilities as well as public or business facilities. Secondly, it provides resources (fiscal and technical) for residents wishing to conduct hazard mitigation efforts. The passage of the Disaster Mitigation Act in 2000 (DMA 2000) requires proactive pre-disaster planning as a condition of receiving certain financial assistance under the Robert T. Stafford Act. DMA 2000 encourages state and local authorities to work together on pre-disaster planning to assist local governments to accurately assess mitigation needs, resulting in faster allocation of funding and more cost-effective risk reduction projects.