State Hazard Mitigation Plan - Update and Kickoff Meeting

This morning, the Division's Mitigation Office hosted a multi-agency meeting to kick-off the massive coordination project involved in updating the State's Hazard Mitigation Plan.  The current version of the State's plan is the 2008 Colorado Hazard Mitigation Plan.  These plans are updated every couple of years.  In short, they cover the breadth of known hazards present in Colorado for which the State prepares for - including from a mitigation, preparedness and response and recovery perspective.  Droughts, floods, earthquakes, landslides, wildfires and winter storms each comprise a special, targeted component of the overall Colorado plan.

Representatives from various State, Federal and non-governmental agencies sit on the Hazard Mitigation committee (see slide 3 in the kickoff meeting presentation below).  In Colorado, each local jurisdiction maintains its own Local Pre-Disaster Hazard Mitigation Plans, which are individually authorized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency but for which the State serves as the coordinator for submission and approval.

In any event, this was my first Hazard Mitigation Plan meeting and, after speaking with our mitigation office, got the OK to post the kick-off meeting slides to share.  The effort is remarkable in its scope, from hazard identification, to risk assessment and estimation of potential loss, to the coordination with local mitigation planning efforts to ensure the State plan is consistent and complimentary to local efforts.

This year, the push is to break new ground in integrating the disparate and varied preparedness and recovery planning efforts being maintained individually by State agencies and entities into a common risk assessment.  In short, these agencies are collaborating to make sure the math used in efforts like disaster assessment and organization are using common a common language and calculation.  Furthermore, the plan will shift from a periodically updated plan to more of a "living document" with an online committee collaboration effort here and on the Division website to support exchange of documents and forms used in preparedness and recovery actions by committee members and agencies.  It should be a busy and interesting year.