HARSHMAN, CAROLYN J. DBA EMERGENCY PLANNING CONSULTANTS

Home Browse Search

Exhibit A Scope of Services At present, the City of Santa Ana is not in compliance with DMA 2000 and therefore not eligible to complete for Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds which are made available to jurisdictions within the declared area following a Presidential Disaster Declaration. In order to accomplish eligibility, a FEMA-approved Hazard Mitigation Plan must be developed that accomplishes the following: The intent of DMA 2000 is three -fold: a) To gather hazard, vulnerability, and mitigation information from the local level for use in state -level planning; b) To ensure that state and local hazard mitigation planning is coordinated to the greatest extent practical; and c) To ensure that local jurisdictions are made aware of the hazards and vulnerabilities within their jurisdiction and to develop strategies to reduce those vulnerabilities. In order to meet all of those objectives, FEMA developed a "checklist" for use by the State and Federal reviewers. The Region IX Local Hazard Mitigation Plan Review Tool (FEMA Review Tool) includes the following tasks: ➢ Element A: Planning Process ➢ Element B: Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment ➢ Element C: Mitigation Strategy ➢ Element D: Plan Review, Evaluation, and Implementation ➢ Element E: Plan Adoption (by City Council) It's important to note that it is especially important to hire a firm with an extensive history of preparing FEMA-approved Hazard Mitigation Plans. Without adequate experience, it would not be unusual to spend as much time in the "Cal OES and FEMA review phase" as in preparing the actual plan. EPC prepares approvable plans and in the event a Cal OES or FEMA reviewer disagrees, knows how to discuss the difference in interpretation to gain approval. Specific strategies for accomplishing Element A-E are discussed below in Methodology and Quality Control. Methodology and Quality Control Preparation of the Hazard Mitigation Plan will incorporate all of the federal requirements relating to local hazard mitigation plans. EPC's hazard mitigation planning approach has been perfected since 2005 when the federal government first required plans for local jurisdictions. Since that time great effort and time has gone into tracking the changes of "interpretations" by the regulatory agencies of the DMA 2000 legislation. Without publishing updates to the originating legislation, FEMA instead has published guidelines (see below) and has amended the FEMA Review Tool used to judge the adequacy of plans. Understanding all the changes in interpretation is critical to writing a plan that can go through the state and FEMA reviewers with only minor revisions. State and FEMA have both made significant staffing changes over the past year resulting in more consistent reviews and fewer unjustified requested changes. Recently, FEMA review staff have worked closely with state review staff to better understand the requirements in order to streamline the review process. With so many FEMA approved #36221v2