EAST?LONGMEADOW?– No residents attended the first of two scheduled public outreach meetings regarding the town’s hazard mitigation plan on Nov. 16.

Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC) Principal Planner Catherine Ratté told Reminder Publications a lack of resident input isn’t uncommon due to a lack of knowledge about hazard mitigation.

“It’s largely an informational thing to let people know that it’s happening,” she added.

The PVPC has facilitated the creation of hazard mitigation plans in 40 of 43 communities in the Pioneer Valley, she noted. The majority of meetings see few residents attend, if any.

“[Hazard mitigation] is any sustained action to taken to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk to people or property from natural hazards,” she added. “We’re talking about looking at the big picture – what are the likely natural hazardous that are going to affect East Longmeadow? Where’s the critical infrastructure located? And then we map those two pieces of information over each other to identify if there’s critical infrastructure that’s vulnerable to natural hazards.”

Ratté said hazard mitigation includes steps such as planning and zoning, open space preservation, education and outreach as well as drainage improvements.

She added Greenfield was awarded hazard mitigation grant funding for a housing development located in an area that frequently floods.

“They got hazard mitigation grant funding to buy the land, move the people that live there to higher ground, and turn it into a park,” she noted.

Hazard mitigation funding comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), she said.

She added, “FEMA I think wants residents to know that their governments are preparing in the long-term.”

East Longmeadow Hazard Mitigation Committee members include interim Town Administrator Greg Moyer, Department of Public Works Superintendent Robert Peirent, Fire Chief Paul Morrissette, Director of Planning Robyn MacDonald, Building Inspector Daniel Hellyer and Emergency Management Director Brian Falk.

“We’ve met twice and the [PVPC] will have at least three more meetings with them,” Ratté said. “We’ve got a draft plan going. We’re working through the draft plan.”

She added the draft plan includes a history of natural hazards in the town, which ranks them based on the experience of committee members. It also documents locations of critical infrastructure.

“The town is pretty well prepared,” she noted. “We’re right now diving into the existing mitigation capabilities in the community and so there’s really good zoning that prohibits development in the wetlands so there aren’t major concerns about that. There’s building requirements – make sure that structures are earthquake resistant and built to the building code.”

Ratté said flooding is an ongoing concern in the region due to climate chaos and increasing unpredictable weather events.

“I’d say flooding is a major concern; the high winds that come with hurricanes and that kind of thing is a concern for trees being damaged and falling on property,” she explained.  

A second public outreach meeting is planned for sometime in February, Ratté said. At that point, the draft mitigation plan would be available to view online.

For more information, contact Ratté at cratte@pvpc.org.