Introduction

The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 requires local governments to develop and update a hazard mitigation plan every five (5) years in order to be eligible for certain types of federal hazard mitigation grant funding.

The development of the Holmes County Hazard Mitigation Plan began back in 2007 and involved the participation of numerous local agencies and various subject-matter experts. The Holmes County Hazard Mitigation Plan was approved by FEMA in 2007 and was updated and re-approved in 2014 to meet the requirements of the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000.

Natural hazards have the potential to cause loss of life, property losses, economic hardships, and threats to public safety. While natural disasters cannot be prevented from occurring, implementing mitigation strategies can reduce the long-term risk to life and property and make Holmes County a more disaster-resilient community. By implementing hazard mitigation actions, Holmes County is striving to break the disaster cycle of damage, reconstruction, and repeat damage.

The first step in the planning process for developing the Holmes County Hazard Mitigation Plan was to determine the overall risk to the county with regard to hazard vulnerability. Once the hazards were identified, the vulnerability to those hazards was assessed. The 2019-2020 plan update utilized data from multiple sources to evaluate risk, including historical damage data, input from subject-matter experts, and information from HAZUS. The 2019-2020 revision of the plan details Holmes County’s highest-priority hazards to include: flooding, winter storms, drought, landslides, and tornado/wind events.

The next step in the planning process was to develop a blueprint of actions that will mitigate the risk to the identified hazards. The plan details a list of mitigation goals, objectives, and related actions that can assist Holmes County in reducing risk and preventing loss from future natural hazard events.