County updating hazard plan, seeks public input

Both Hill City and Keystone are actively involved in helping to create the Pennington County 

Natural Hazard Mitigation plan. Every 5 years Pennington County, including all eight municipalities contribute to this plan. The plan is essentially a collection of what to do prior to a disaster happening so that the effects of the disaster can be lessened. 

Pennington County Emergency Director Dustin Willett calls the Rapid Creek Greenway a classic example of this type of mitigation. Prior to 1972 homes had backyards that went right up to the creek. After 1972  money was spent to turn this area into a Greenway and build infrastructure that will prevent the similar loss of property and lives if something like this were to occur again. Pre-disaster mitigation projects include everything from thinning projects to fuel brakes to improving the specifications of bridges to adding generators to lift stations to burying  power lines. “ There are lots of examples," says Willett. 

The latest facts and figures say for every dollar spent on pre mitigation entities save $6 on response. 

The federal government offers more money now than it used to for a variety of programs most of which fall under what's called The BRIC ( Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities )program.

 South Dakota sees millions of these dollars each and every year but in order for communities to be eligible to apply for BRIC grants they must have FEMA approval in the form of a mitigation plan. Once a municipality signs off on the plan the plan will go to the state and then to FEMA for approval. The process is long and involved and looks a little different this time around then initially.

 The current plan which expires in September 2025 was created by Willett himself. He said it was an amazing experience and he learned a lot but it was 2 years of nothing but pre-disaster mitigation. And while his office is still actively involved in the process they have contracted with Black Hills Council of Local Governments who will be doing everything that Willett was doing. Willett admits he doesn't know of any County director in South Dakota who wrote a plan himself. “The normal way,” he says, “is to contract with local planning districts which is why this time the county is doing so.”

Black Hills Council has the technological insight to make the plan electronic. Normally a mitigation plan is a large PDF file.  Willett got the idea  for an electronic format from a FEMA training 2 years ago. It was a virtual week-long mitigation training planning session where instructors provided two examples of communities that had done this sort of online mitigation plan before. Willett calls it a” significantly better product.”

Kailey Snyder from Black Hills Council of Local Governments says her office does, “assist other entities when needed with GIS, primarily for land use and zoning assistance. For this plan, the assistance is in the development of a StoryMap. The Rapid City GIS department has been able to also assist with providing various mapping layers as we work to develop this StoryMap. This format allows for a more interactive type plan than the typical paper copies. This will be the first Mitigation Plan in South Dakota that will be presented in this media.”

 It is also one of a handful in the country that is being offered this way,

 Both Willet’s office and Black Hills Council have been working on the new plan for quite some time. This includes various municipal meetings. The public can give input to the plan by participating in a survey. Surveys can be found at the Keystone Community Center or at City Hall in Hill City. or at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y9L7F6W.

 People can answer questions concerning how they receive alerts about disasters, and what disasters they are concerned about or have had personal experience with.

Surveys are available until Feb 29. 

In addition the city of Hill city is hosting a Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan meeting at the Hill City Center on March 6 at 5:30pm.  The meeting  is meant to allow public comments, questions and concerns as they relate to hazard mitigation. To learn more go to: https://www.penncomitigation.com/