DRAFT BRANCH COUNTY HAZARD MITIGATION PLAN JanuaryJuly 16, 27, 2020 2020 BRANCH COUNTY HAZARD MITIGATION PLAN 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................... iii PLAN ADMINISTRATION AND IMPLEMENTATION .............................. 1 BRANCH COUNTY PROFILE & HISTORY .............................................. 7 HAZARD IDENTIFICATION AND VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT ....... 25 HAZARD MITIGATION STRATEGIES ............................................... 215 PLAN MAINTENANCE ..................................................................... 223 DEFINITIONS OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ................................ 225 SCENARIOS ................................................................................... 233 ATTACHMENT 1: Vulnerable Critical Facilities ................................ 267 ATTACHMENT 2: Critical Resource Dependencies on Other Jurisdictions .................................................................................. 271 ATTACHMENT 3: Characteristics and Policies of the EOP Jurisdiction that May Affect Response ........................................... 273 ATTACHMENT 4: Typical Sequence of Emergency Activities ........... 274 ATTACHMENT 5: Graduated Response Approach ............................ 275 ATTACHMENT 6: Emergency Action Levels ..................................... 276 ATTACHMENT 7: Local Community Subsections ............................. 278 BRANCH COUNTY HAZARD MITIGATION PLAN 2020 ii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Hazard Mitigation Plan defines a process for identifying, quantifying, and reducing risk in Branch County. The plan is the product of utilizing community process to form hazard and vulnerability analysis, risk reduction planning, action items, and implementation process identification. This plan includes a community process that describes development, maintenance, implementation, and adoption activities. It requires the participation of both the resource agencies and the public. The plan also includes a Hazard Identification and Vulnerability Analysis (HIVA) that describes qualitative and quantitative risks and drives the goals, objectives, and development of action items. The plan also presents the vision of Branch County, as described in the Comprehensive Plan, in terms of risk reduction goals, objectives, and action items. The plan has been crafted so that future maintenance activities are captured within the pre-existing County processes. The Branch County Hazard Mitigation Plan was created to document the process by which the County and its individual units of local government can protect the health, safety, and economic interests of the Branch County residents and businesses. This is done by reducing the impacts of natural and technological hazards through hazard mitigation planning, awareness, and implementation. The plan serves as the description of the ongoing hazard mitigation activities within Branch County. Implementation of the recommendations outlined herein is intended to reduce loss of life, destruction of property, and economic losses due to natural and technological hazards. The plan provides a path toward continuous improvement, and the proactive reduction of vulnerability to hazards that result in repetitive and oftentimes severe social, economic, and physical damage. The ideal end state is full integration of hazard mitigation concepts into day-to-day governmental and business functions and management practices. The creators of this plan intend that it will, in fact, be maintained as an ongoing operation in the most logical forum for the County. Where circles of responsibility and interest intersect and are exemplified by ongoing regularly scheduled group and ad-hoc team activities using FEMA guidelines as a reference, a collaborative planning effort took place, involving the Branch County officials, representatives from the respected jurisdictions within the county. The state-level Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division of the Michigan State Police also provided valued input for this Plan. Interested agencies and members of the general public were able to review draft materials, attend open meetings, and provide feedback about the plan or its process. The goals and objectives outlined later in this plan serve as a BRANCH COUNTY HAZARD MITIGATION PLAN 2020 iii standard that is ideally part of an established continually updating process of plan review, evaluation, implementation. This plan employs a broad perspective in examining multi-hazard mitigation activities and opportunities in Branch County. Hazards that threaten to public health, safety, and welfare, as well as the social, economic, and physical fabric of the community, have received emphasis in this plan. The plan addresses such hazards as floods, tornadoes, windstorms, winter storms, forest fires, structural fires, hazardous material incidents, and secondary technological hazards that result from natural hazard events. Hazards are analyzed from a historical perspective as well as from individual community perspectives and are evaluated in terms of their potential chance of occurrence and their likely impacts, when being considered and prioritized for possible mitigation actions. The plan also lays out the legal basis for planning and the tools that can be used for its implementation. This plan focuses heavily on process. The approach involves assembling the proper individuals, groups, and functions, and the use of viable teams, focusing upon the Branch County Disaster Committee and the participating communities within the County. Hazard Inventory and Vulnerability Assessment The Hazard Inventory and Vulnerability Assessment (HIVA) identify risk and vulnerability within Branch County. Risk was defined as a function of hazard and vulnerability. After defining risk, the vulnerabilities of Branch County to a variety of hazards, including severe winter storms, severe thunderstorms, flooding, terrorism, etc., were identified. Vulnerabilities to Branch County were found to include: the residents, small businesses, major businesses, regional lifelines, local government infrastructure and the historic district. Risk Assessment, Profiling Hazard Events, Assessing Vulnerability These areas are well documented in the Hazard Identification and Vulnerability Assessment (HIVA). The document includes a description of all hazards in the jurisdiction; provides a description of all vulnerabilities in the jurisdiction; addresses the impact of hazards in the community; identifies types and numbers of vulnerable buildings; addresses vulnerability of future buildings; identifies the sources used to determine the hazards and vulnerabilities; indicates the data limitations; justifies the elimination of hazards as appropriate; identifies and profiles manmade hazards; identifies vulnerable assets; estimates potential dollar loss; describes methodology for estimate; describes land use and development trends; and describes related vulnerability. Branch County is susceptible to many natural, technological, and human-caused hazards. Knowledge of these hazards, their frequency and the community’s vulnerability to them allows the community, emergency management, police, fire and medical agencies to better assess their risks associated to the present hazards and to plan and prepare for their consequences. BRANCH COUNTY HAZARD MITIGATION PLAN 2020 iv The purpose of the Hazard Identification and Vulnerability Assessment (HIVA) is twofold: 1. To provide a basic level of knowledge and limited analysis of the hazards posing a threat to Branch County. 2. To serve as a base document for the Branch County and communities Land Use Plans, the Hazard Mitigation Plan, and the Emergency Operations Plan. This document represents an elementary review of available published material. It is a summary of the relevant information needed to allow a subjective evaluation of the risk posed by certain hazards. It is not, nor is it intended to be, a rigorous or scientific analysis. Relative Risk Assessment Based on the individual hazard profiles and risk assessments contained herein, below are the Potential Hazards as determined during the creation of the Risk, Threat and Vulnerability Assessment by Branch County Emergency Operations in 2019 (rating in parenthesis): 1. Thunderstorm Hazard: Lightning (8.75) 2. Thunderstorm Hazard: Hail (8.75) 3. Thunderstorm Hazard: Severe Winds (8.75) 4. Thunderstorm Hazard: Tornado (8.75) 5. Energy Emergencies 6. Infrastructure Failure (7.25) 7. Terrorism or Other Criminal Activity (6.5) 8. Invasive Species 9. Nuclear Power Plant Activities (6) 10. Winter Weather Hazards (6) 11. Pipeline Accidents: Oil/Gas (5.75) 12. Extreme Temperatures (5.75) 13. Hazardous Materials Incident: Transportation (5.75) 14. Hazardous Materials Incident: Fixed Site (4.5) 15. War/Nuclear Attack/WMD (4.5) 16. Structural Fires (4) 17. Transportation Accidents (3.75) 18. Wildfire (3.75) 19. Dam Failures (3.75) 20. River Flooding (3.5) 21. Urban Flooding (3) 22. Drought (2) 23. Subsidence 24. Geomagnetic Storms 25. Civil Disturbances (1.75) 26. Earthquake (1) BRANCH COUNTY HAZARD MITIGATION PLAN 2020 v Since Thunderstorm Hazards are very probable in Branch County within the next 25 years with anticipated severe impacts to the area, including the entire population, this hazard is given the highest risk rating. The historical significance of Lightning, Hail, Severe Wind or Tornado events have indicated that thunderstorm hazards will occur several times annually. Severe Wind,