Hazard mitigation is the use of long and short-term strategies to reduce or alleviate the loss of life, personal injury, and property damage that can result from a natural or man-made disaster. Virtually all the county’s capital facilities could be susceptible to some type of natural or man-made disaster under certain conditions. Minimizing or reducing the impact of disasters or hazards on capital facilities is an intrinsic goal of hazard mitigation planning. These are the primary reasons why this section is included in this CFP. Snohomish County’s hazard mitigation plan involves planning policy development/changes, programs and projects/activities that can mitigate the impact of hazards.

The federal Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA2K) required state and local governments to develop hazard mitigation plans as a condition for receiving disaster-related federal grant assistance. The DMA2K emphasizes the importance of community hazard mitigation planning before disasters occur and encourages state and local authorities to work together on pre-disaster planning. Snohomish County developed its first Hazard Mitigation Plan according to the requirements of the DMA2K and Chapter 44 of the Code of Federal Regulations (44CFR). It was approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Region X in 2005.

Snohomish County consistently ranks among the highest number of repetitive flood loss properties in the FEMA Region X. The county and a planning partnership of dozens of local governments within the county boundaries embraced the concept of the DMA and prepared one of the largest multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plans in the western U.S. The planning area boundary is the Snohomish County boundary. A complete inventory of the numbers and types of structures was developed using county assessor’s data and GIS applications.

Snohomish County and a partnership of local governments and jurisdictions (see summary tables on page 60) have since 2005 maintained a hazard mitigation plan to reduce future loss of life and destruction of property resulting from disasters. The initial hazard mitigation planning effort produced a partnership that embraced the concept of risk reduction through proactive mitigation.

Snohomish County’s current Hazard Mitigation Plan has five main goals:

The scope of the plan and analysis does not extend into land-use-based recommendations because other programs in the planning area already have a primary focus on land use. Information in the Hazard Mitigation Plan can be used as a tool in other programs such as:

Risk assessment is the primary process (between Snohomish County and participating jurisdictions) on which the Hazard Mitigation Plan was based. Risk assessment is the process of measuring the potential for loss of life, personal injury, economic injury and property damage resulting from primarily natural hazards. Assessments include the following three elements:

Snohomish County’s hazard mitigation plan identifies and addresses the following hazards as having the most potential impact:

Man-made hazards (e.g., hazardous materials incidents, terrorism) are not addressed in the plan except for dam failure.

The actual risk assessment is developed by using a GIS based software program called HAZUS-MH developed by FEMA in 1997. The program can estimate potential losses from natural disasters, displays hazard data and the results of damage plus projected economic loss estimates for buildings and infrastructure. Uncertainties are inherent in any loss estimation methodology and arise in part from incomplete scientific knowledge concerning natural hazards and their effects on the built environment, thus the predictions are not precise results.

Each participating jurisdiction used data from the process to rank the hazards of concern based on the potential impact on the particular jurisdiction. A risk ranking methodology was developed to support this process. Data from the Snohomish County Buildable Lands Report (required by the Washington Growth Management Act) was used to evaluate future development trends for each identified hazard of concern.

The vulnerability of “critical facilities” was also assessed. The FEMA standard definition for “critical facilities” was used. These facilities include:

A database of critical facilities within the planning area was created to identify vulnerabilities to each hazard addressed by the plan. A detailed list is not available due to the sensitivity of the information. The list(s) is on file with each planning partner. The risk assessment for each hazard anecdotally discusses critical facilities with regard to the particular hazard.

An enhanced catalog of mitigation alternatives was developed (with planning partners) via a facilitated planning process that looked at strengths, weaknesses, obstacles, and opportunities within Snohomish County. An analysis of mitigation initiatives matrix was added to identify which of six mitigation categories each initiative meets. This illustrates the comprehensive range of actions identified.

The plan ultimately identifies 216 hazard mitigation initiatives. These are segregated by countywide initiatives and jurisdiction-specific initiatives. The countywide initiatives are in Volume 1 of the plan and the jurisdiction-specific initiatives are in Volume 2.