Greenwood County updates hazard mitigation plans
Plan for the worst, hope for the best — the first half is part of George McKinney’s job in Greenwood County.
As emergency management coordinator, McKinney has worked alongside government officials, local organizations and private business owners to update the goals and strategies of the county’s Hazard Mitigation Plan.
The plan was developed to meet the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s regulations and guidance to help reduce the human and economic costs of natural disasters. Planning like this involves assessing areas most at risk, analyzing their vulnerabilities, developing mitigation strategies and implementing a schedule for the county and its municipalities.
“For every dollar you spend on mitigation, you save four on the back-end,” McKinney said. “You can’t mitigate everything at one time, so we go through the process of identifying our goals.”
The 59-page mitigation plan is available online at bit.ly/3ERiyv7, and was recently updated from the previous 2018 draft. McKinney said he hopes to get feedback from the community and receive FEMA’s approval on the plan by the end of December. The county will host a public meeting Oct. 29 to discuss the plan and any recommendations for change, but the location and time have not been set yet as officials monitor COVID-19 case numbers and adapt for public safety.
For information or to share feedback on the mitigation plan, call McKinney at 864-942-8553 or email him at gmckinney@grenwoodsc.gov.
“There’s over 70,000 people here, and they see things we don’t see,” McKinney said. “We want to make sure we are getting those and including that in our plans.”
Some of the changes include an increase in the hazardous materials threat the county faces. McKinney said it partially arose because of past transportation of hazardous materials through the county and the probability of small events that could pose a risk.
The historic flooding that hit South Carolina in fall 2015 played into the updated plan, he said, and the county has seen an increase in flooding in low-lying areas.
“Over the years, we’ve continued to have impacts, with roads and bridges being topped and having to be closed,” he said.
Potential loss estimates in the event of a disaster increased because Greenwood has grown — loss estimates increase as more people move into the area, he said, and officials see estimates rise nearly every year.
Part of planning is identifying critical facilities and figuring out how to make them less vulnerable. Schools are vulnerable to tornados, so McKinney said the county can look at requiring certain construction materials or techniques for any new building to reduce the threat tornados pose.
A large part of prevention is community education, so McKinney said the county provides weather radios and smoke detectors through grant funding. An upcoming capital project sales tax project will involve studying the watershed of several creeks that have flooded repeatedly over the years, and efforts to mitigate flooding such as digging drainage trenches or building retention ponds.
Originally Published by Index-Journal on:Sep 28, 2021
By DAMIAN DOMINGUEZ ddominguez@indexjournal.com