2021 All Hazard Mitigation Plan Town of Brattleboro Windham County Vermont Prepared by: Planning Services Department for the Brattleboro Hazard Mitigation Committee Town of Brattleboro 230 Main Street, Suite 202 Brattleboro, VT 05301 Adopted xxxxxx 0 INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE .................................................................................................................... 3 BRATTLEBORO GEOGRAPHY & TOWN PROFILE ............................................................................................ 5 PREREQUISITES ............................................................................................................................................. 7 CERTIFICATE OF ADOPTION ...................................................................................................................... 7 PLANNING PROCESS ...................................................................................................................................... 9 PLAN DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................................................................ 9 REVIEW OF SUPPORTING MATERIALS .................................................................................................... 10 DOCUMENTATION OF THE PLANNING PROCESS .................................................................................... 11 ONGOING HAZARD MITIGATION PUBLIC PLANNING ............................................................................. 12 RISK ASSESSMENT ....................................................................................................................................... 15 IDENTIFYING AND PROFILING HAZARDS ................................................................................................ 15 ASSESSING VULNERABILITY: OVERVIEW ................................................................................................. 37 ASSESSING VULNERABILITY: REPETITIVE LOSS PROPERTIES ................................................................... 41 ASSESSING VULNERABILITY: IDENTIFYING STRUCTURES:....................................................................... 43 ASSESSING VULNERABILITY: ANYALYZING DEVELOPMENT TRENDS ...................................................... 47 MITIGATION STRATEGY ............................................................................................................................... 52 HAZARD MITIGATION GOALS ................................................................................................................. 52 HAZARD MITIGATION OBJECTIVES ......................................................................................................... 52 EXISTING HAZARD MITIGATION PROGRAMS, PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES ............................................. 52 NATIONAL FLOOD INSURANCE PROGRAM (NFIP) COMPLIANCE ........................................................... 51 IMPLEMENTATION OF MITIGATION ACTIONS ........................................................................................ 52 IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF FUTURE MITIGATION ACTIONS ..................................................... 53 RANKING OF MITIGATION ACTIONS ....................................................................................................... 53 PLAN MAINTENANCE PROCESS ................................................................................................................... 58 MONITORING, EVALUATING, AND UPDATING THE PLAN ...................................................................... 58 2010 BRATTLEBORO HMP AND POST IRENE MITIGATION ACTIONS PLAN REVIEW............................... 58 2016 BRATTLEBORO HMP AND POST IRENE MITIGATION ACTIONS PLAN REVIEW............................... 60 INCORPORATING INTO EXISTING PLANNING MECHANISMS.................................................................. 62 APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................................ 64 1 2 INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE This plan is the 2021 All-Hazard Mitigation Plan for the town of Brattleboro. The purpose of this plan is to identify hazards facing the Town and to develop strategies to continue reducing risks from those hazards. The Plan is guided by the goals and policies of the Brattleboro Town Plan and in particular the goals of the Land Use Chapter: A. Promote development of a future land use pattern that promotes public health and safety against floods, ensures the viability of agricultural and forestry economies, protects natural resources, promotes transportation accessibility, and reinforces a compact development pattern B. Reduce the impact of flooding and erosion C. Promote development patterns that include walkable streets; compact, mixed-use development; public spaces; and context-sensitivity to historic design and development D. Increase and improve public access to waterfront areas The Town Plan and this Hazard Mitigation Plan understand that hazard mitigation is any sustained action that reduces or eliminates long-term risk to people and property from natural and human-caused hazards and their effects, from small scale efforts to reduces risks to individual structures to policies that address or reduce risks, to landscape scale mitigation projects. Based on the results of previous Project Impact efforts, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and state agencies have come to recognize that it is less expensive to prevent disasters than to repeatedly repair damage after a disaster has struck. This plan recognizes that communities have opportunities to identify mitigation strategies and measures during all of the other phases of emergency management – preparedness, response and recovery. Hazards cannot be eliminated, but it is possible to determine what the hazards are, where the hazards are most severe and identify local actions that can be taken to reduce the severity of the hazard. Hazard mitigation must focus on social equity, preservation of natural, cultural, and historic resources, and community resilience. Hazard mitigation strategies and measures alter the hazard by eliminating or reducing the frequency of occurrence, averting the hazard by redirecting the impact by means of a structure or land treatment, adapt to the hazard by modifying structures or standards or avoid the hazard by stopping or limiting development, and could include projects such as: • Incremental improvements to structures to reduce flood, landslide, and fire risks. • Identifying and modifying high traffic incident locations and routes • Ensuring adequate water supply • Elevating structures or utilities above flood levels • Removing structures from areas at risk of deep flooding, rapid erosion, or landslides. • Improving stormwater management and drainage along public roads. • Proactive land use planning for floodplains and other natural hazard areas • Ensuring critical facilities are safely located 3 • Restoring natural flood plain functions • Preserving historic, cultural, and natural assets • Promoting public education and information for risk reduction and emergency response. We recognize that what is now known as Brattleboro, is a part of the unceded homeland of the Sokoki Abenaki and their kin. This place, known traditionally as Wantastegok has been an indigenous home for more than 12,000 years where the maintenance of reciprocal relationships has persisted. As river-centric peoples, the Abenaki see the water and land as a part of themselves, not a separate entity. The Kwenitekw (Connecticut) River and the Wantastekw (West) Rivers meet at the confluence called Wantastegok. The indigenous people of this place relate to it as an extended family. The people belong to the landscape and its rivers, which include the tributaries, ponds, wetlands of their watershed. We acknowledge that the inherent value of resilient indigenous relationships have been actively and continually dismantled by colonization, yet the Abenaki and their cultural values are still here as witness and example 4 BRATTLEBORO GEOGRAPHY & TOWN PROFILE Brattleboro is a community in Southeastern Vermont of about 32 square miles in area. Owing to its far southeastern location within the state of Vermont and its physiographic location in a valley at the confluence of the Connecticut and West Rivers and the Whetstone Brook, the town has long been a gateway to Vermont from the south and serves as a regional transportation hub. Brattleboro is served by Amtrak’s Vermonter train, Southeast Vermont Transit (SEVT)’s Moover bus service, interstate 91, US Route 5, and Vermont State Routes 9, 30, 119, and 142. Brattleboro’s largest standing water body and primary source of municipal drinking water is the Pleasant Valley Reservoir. Certain recreational activities are prohibited at the reservoir, including boating, swimming, and fishing, but many other recreational uses occur along the shoreline and in the surrounding watershed, including hiking and bicycling. The Retreat Meadows, located at the confluence of the Connecticut River and West River, is an all-season recreational resource for the communities as well. Activities permitted at the Retreat Meadows include boating, swimming, fishing, wildlife watching, and ice-skating. Mapped watercourses in Brattleboro include the Connecticut River, Whetstone Brook, Halladay Brook, Ames Brook, Crosby Brook, Pleasant Valley Brook, and the West River. Access to these watercourses is primarily gained through private property.