Last week, the Barton Community College Board of Trustees approved the 2025 Kansas Homeland Security Region E Hazard Mitigation Plan and Resolution. This was also on the agenda for Monday’s Great Bend City Council meeting.
Other entities in Kansas Region E will also be required to adopt similar resolutions.
Kansas Region E includes Barton, Pawnee and Stafford counties, along with Barber, Comanche, Edwards, Kiowa and Pratt counties.
Mark Dean, Barton’s vice president of administration, provided a copy of the plan – a document with 290 pages plus appendixes, and a resolution adopting it.
“We didn’t write this, but we were involved in it,” Dean said. “All cities, counties and colleges are required to approve the resolution. That allows us to be eligible for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) dollars.”
Other entities in Kansas Region E will also be required to adopt similar resolutions.
Other adopting jurisdictions in Barton County are the City of Albert, City of Claflin, City of Ellinwood, City of Hoisington, City of Pawnee Rock, City of Susank, USD 112 Claflin, USD 355 Ellinwood, USD 428 Great Bend, USD 431 Hoisington, Ark Valley Rural Electric Cooperative (REC), Midwest Energy, Rolling Hills REC, Sunflower Electric, Western Electric, Wheatland Electric, Post Rock Rural Water District and Rural Water District #3.
The introduction to the plan explains its purpose:
Hazard mitigation is commonly defined as sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and their property from hazards and their effects. Hazard mitigation planning provides communities with a roadmap to aid in the creation and revision of policies and procedures, and the use of available resources, to provide long-term, tangible benefits to the community. A well-designed hazard mitigation plan provides communities with realistic actions that can be taken to reduce potential vulnerability and exposure to identified hazards.
This multi-jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP) was prepared to provide sustained actions to eliminate or reduce risk to people and property from the effects of natural and man-made hazards. This plan documents the Kansas Region E and its participating jurisdictions planning process and identifies applicable hazards, vulnerabilities, and hazard mitigation strategies. This plan will serve to direct available community and regional resources towards creating policies and actions that provide long-term benefits to the community. Local and regional officials can refer to the plan when making decisions regarding regulations and ordinances, granting permits, and in funding capital improvements and other community initiatives.
According to FEMA, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five territories including American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands have approved mitigation plans. A total of over 21,227 local governments and 196 tribal governments have approved or approvable-pending-adoption mitigation plans.
The nation’s population who live in communities with current mitigation plans is nearly 80.9%. States, tribes, territories, and local governments benefit from all hazard planning because it helps them understand natural hazards and develop mitigation strategies. It also provides eligibility for certain non-emergency FEMA grants.
