Santa Clara County to update expired hazard management plan

After one of California’s stormiest winters in recent memory downed power lines and trees, Santa Clara County is updating its plan to keep damage from storms and other natural disasters to a minimum.

The county’s Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan, which expired in 2022, helps access federal funding for projects like earthquake retrofitting and vegetation management to control the spread of wildfires. The collaborative effort across several cities and organizations also helps to identify safety risks in a region and set a game plan of how to minimize or manage those risks. It is facilitated by the county’s office of emergency management.

“Prevention measures seek to eliminate hazards or our susceptibility to them. Mitigation typically says, ‘Hey, this is going to happen, and we gotta reduce the inevitable impact,’” Louay Toma, senior emergency planner with County Fire’s office of emergency management, said. “A wildfire will happen, a flood will happen…so what are we going to do to prevent that?”

The plan builds partnerships between communities that share hazard risks like wildfires and includes long-term solutions that reduce the impact of disasters in the future.

The county’s current Hazard Mitigation Plan was approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2017. They typically have a shelf life of five years, but in the wake of the pandemic, FEMA allowed counties and cities to use their existing plan while they complete the update.

Just last week, more than 360,000 PG&E customers in the Bay Area lost power during peak storms, and the surrounding region saw flooding and heavy winds and rain fall.

Toma said to apply for a project, an organization or agency would work with the county to submit a proposal to the state. If approved, it would be submitted to the federal government for federal grant consideration.

The county’s office of emergency management hosted a community meeting March 15 at the Campbell Community Center to present the plan to residents in the region and boost transparency. Toma said these meetings will be held in other parts of the county as work on the plan wraps up.

The county used grant funds to hire a consultant to help update the plan and work with regional entities like SCC Fire and Valley Water, and the several jurisdictions in Santa Clara County.

The plan has to go through a series of stakeholder reviews and revisions, including review by the public, before it is adopted.