2019_KittitasCountyHMP_Volume 1_For Adoption

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ES-1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Disaster Mitigation Act (DMA) is federal legislation that promotes proactive pre-disaster planning by making it a condition of receiving financial assistance under the Robert T. Stafford Act. The DMA established a Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program and new requirements for the national post -disaster Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. The DMA encourages state and local authorities to work together on pre-disaster planning, and it promotes sustainability as a strategy for disaster resistance. Sustainable hazard mitigation addresses the sound management of natural resources and local economic and social resiliency, and it recognizes that hazards and mitigation must be understood in a broad social and economic context. The planning network called for by the DMA helps local governments articulate accurate needs for mitigation, resulting in faster allocation of funding and more cost-effective risk-reduction projects. A planning partnership made up of Kittitas County and local governments worked together to create this Kittitas County Hazard Mitigation Plan to fulfill the DMA requirements for all fully participating partners. PLAN PURPOSE Several factors initiated this planning effort for Kittitas County and its planning partners: • The Kittitas County area has had significant exposure to numerous natural hazards that have caused millions of dollars in past damage. • Limited local resources make it difficult to be pre-emptive in risk reduction initiatives. Being able to leverage federal financial assistance is paramount to successful hazard mitigation in the area. • The partners wanted to be proactive in preparedness for the impacts of natural hazards. With these factors in mind, Kittitas County committed to the preparation and subsequent update of the plan by attaining funding for the effort through grants, establishing the planning partnership, and securing technical assistance to facilitate a planning process that would comply with multiple program requirements. THE PLANNING PARTNERSHIP The planning partnership assembled for this plan consists of Kittitas County, four incorporated cities and nine special purpose districts defined as “local governments” under the Disaster Mitigation Act. This partnership represents approximately 50 percent of eligible local governments in the planning area. Of these 13 planning partners, all completed the required phases of this plan’s development. Jurisdictional annexes for these 13 partners are included in Volume 2 of the plan. Jurisdictions not covered by this process can link to this plan at a future date by following the linkage procedures identified in Appendix B of Volume 2 of this plan. PLAN DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY Development and update of the Kittitas County Hazard Mitigation Plan included seven phases: • Phase 1—Organize resources—–Under this phase, grant funding was secured to fund the effort, the planning partnership was formed and a steering committee of planning partners and other stakeholders was assembled to oversee development of the plan. Also under this phase