Washington County Seeks Community Input on Natural Hazards Mitigation Action Plan

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, September 08, 2015

Washington County is at risk from a variety of natural hazards, including severe weather, earthquakes and wildfires. The Washington County Natural Hazards Mitigation Action Plan seeks to address these hazards by identifying activities that can be taken to lessen their impacts. The plan was last approved by FEMA in February 2011 and must be updated every five years.

Updating the plan, which is targeted for completion and FEMA approval by February 2016, is a joint effort among Washington County, Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience (University of Oregon), Tualatin Valley Water District, Clean Water Services, Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue, and the cities of Hillsboro and Tigard.

The plan update will focus on actions to reduce the severity of impact for six natural hazards: flooding, earthquakes, wildfires, severe weather, landslides and volcanic eruptions. Components of the plan update include a hazards assessment, vulnerability analysis and a risk assessment. These details will assist Washington County emergency planners to understand which hazards pose the greatest threat to people, infrastructure and facilities in hazard prone areas and how significant the impacts may be.

To ensure that the updated plan meets the community's needs, anyone who lives or works in Washington County is invited to complete a brief survey, which can be found online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/M2K5CS6. The survey will remain open until October 1.

"We hope everyone will take a few minutes to share their thoughts on where and how we should target our hazard mitigation efforts," says Scott Porter, director of Washington County's Emergency Management Cooperative.

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