Item 26 - Updated Hazard Mitigation Plan

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Hazard Mitigation Plan | 2022 Climate Change Hazards - 88 - enforcement to prevent wasteful water use. In response, the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) adopted regulation requiring water suppliers to implement conservation actions under Level 2 of their Water Conservation Contingency Plans by June 10, 2022. Currently, there is no water supply emergency for Santa Ana, however the City Council supports the actions necessary to comply with the State’s requirements. As such, Santa Ana residents and businesses were asked to reduce water usage by following water conservation practices inside and outside the home, and for businesses to improve their water use processes. Santa Ana’s reduction actions for a Level 2 Water Supply Conservation, recently implemented by City Council resolution, limits outdoor watering to two days a week and only between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. It also reduces the time to repair leaks to within 48 hours of notification by the City. These new requirements were effective on June 7, 2022. Local Conditions It’s impossible to separate drought from water supply shortages. Drought is defined as a deficiency of precipitation over an extended period of time, usually a season or more. This deficiency results in a water shortage for some activity, group, or environmental sector. Drought should be considered relative to some long-term average condition of balance between precipitation and evapotranspiration (i.e., evaporation + transpiration) in a particular area, a condition often perceived as "normal". It is also related to the timing (e.g., principal season of occurrence, delays in the start of the rainy season, occurrence of rains in relation to principal crop growth stages) and the effectiveness of the rains (e.g., rainfall intensity, number of rainfall events). Other climatic factors such as high temperature, high wind, and low relative humidity are often associated with it in many regions of the world and can significantly aggravate its severity. Drought should not be viewed as merely a physical phenomenon or natural event. Its impacts on society result from the interplay between a natural event (less precipitation than expected resulting from natural climatic variability) and the demand people place on water supply. Human beings often exacerbate the impact of drought. Recent droughts in both developing and developed countries and the resulting economic and environmental impacts and personal hardships have underscored the vulnerability of all societies to this natural hazard. One dry year does not normally constitute a drought in California but serves as a reminder of the need to plan for droughts. California's extensive system of water supply infrastructure — its reservoirs, groundwater basins, and inter-regional conveyance facilities — mitigates the effect of short-term dry periods for most water users. Defining when a drought begins is a function of drought impacts to water users. Hydrologic conditions constituting a drought for water users in one location may not constitute a drought for water users elsewhere, or for water users having a different water supply. Individual water suppliers may use criteria such as rainfall/runoff, amount of water in storage, or expected supply from a water wholesaler to define their water supply conditions. Drought is a gradual phenomenon. Although droughts are sometimes characterized as emergencies, they differ from typical emergency events. Most natural disasters, such as floods or forest fires, occur relatively rapidly and afford little time for preparing for d isaster response. Droughts occur slowly, over a multiyear period. There is no universal definition of when a drought begins or ends. Impacts of drought are typically felt first by those most reliant on annual rainfall - - ranchers engaged in dry land grazing, rural residents relying on wells in low-yield rock formations, or small water systems lacking a reliable source. Criteria used to identify statewide drought conditions do not address these localized impacts. Drought impacts increase with the