Hazard Mitigation Action Plan

Alright – for this assignment, you’re going to evaluate/analyze a Hazard Mitigation Action Plan (HMAP). Specifically, we’re going to look at Bowie County (Texarkana is excluded from the Art-Tex Council of Governments Plan), as I wanted to pick a place where I don’t think any of us live. The other criteria were that the HMAP needed to be formatted in a way that makes it easy to analyze and of reasonable length. This is a good, representative example of an HMAP for small-ish cities within a medium-sized geographic area. Obviously, large geographic areas and heavily populated regions are extremely complex. The Harris County plan is published in volumes and is over 1500 pages!!!!

One of the primary purposes of this class (and of people who focus on mitigation) is to get you to move outside of the mental framework most of you operate under (primarily focused on operations and response) and to get you to think more about long-term and short-term mitigation/preparedness strategies. The purpose of this assignment is to get you thinking about real-world mitigation planning, what it looks like, and how these plans are important for communities.

Step #1) Pick a community (do not select the TexAmericas Center or Unincorporated Bowie County):

Step #2) Review how Bowie County establishes/assigns risk. This can be found on pages 24 – 25.

Step #3) Go through the Hazards (they list 10: Flood – Wildfire; you can find the page #s on index pages 3-5). Be sure to identify the impact each hazard could have on the community you selected in Step #1.

Step #4) Read through the city goals and summaries of mitigation planning efforts.

DeKalb starts on page 146, Hooks starts on page 153, Leary starts on page 160, Maud starts on page 167, Nash starts on page 174, New Boston starts on page 181, Red Lick starts on page 187, Redwater starts on page 195, Wake Village starts on page 202.

Step #5) Answer the required questions:

1) Summarize the primary risks identified for your community.

2) Assess the mitigation actions.

a) Do the actions align with the threat?
b) Are the actions mitigation reasonable? Are they likely to succeed? Why or why not?
c) What are some of the complications or obstacles to the successful implementation of the mitigation actions?
d) Are there any additional mitigation actions you would recommend?
e) Etc.
f) Etc.

3) As a whole, what do you think of the HMAP? What does it get right? What could be improved? How does this help citizens prepare for hazards and disasters?

[Note] You have a lot of leeway in how you answer these questions.

Assignment Criteria

Length: Approximately 4-5 pages double-spaced

Do not double-space your name, class title, etc.

Format: Standard margins, font, double-spaced, page numbers, etc.

Citation: You should utilize quotes longer than a sentence or two. However, if you use
outside material, it needs to be documented. There’s no requirement for how you cite –
just that you do it if applicable.