13 - RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE 2017 LAMAR COUNTY MITIGATION PLAN

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Lamar County Multi- Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan Chapter Four 4.4: COST - BENEFIT REVIEW Cost - benefit review for natural disaster projects is extremely difficult. Since the exact damages or even path of destruction cannot be planned in advance, there is little to no way of calculated an expenditure of $x.xx would lead to potential savings of $X.XX. Less tangible mitigation strategies such as public education or improvements in county codes cost relatively little to implement. There is no way to quantify the number of more informed decisions, and hence number of dollars in reduced losses that could occur following these types of programs. For example, a mother driving home with her children reaches a flooded road way. She contemplates just going through, the water doesn't look that deep, or turning around and going the long way home. She recalls seeing an ad in the local paper that said, "Turn around, don't drown." Her ten year old son has just had flood awareness at school, and asks her to take the other way home. The mother turns around and goes the long way home. Was the money spent worth the investment? Maybe the family would have driven right through and made it home safe and sound with net economic loss of $0.00. Maybe the water was moving a little faster than she thought, and the family vehicle washed down river, resulting in at least damage to the vehicle, and more likely a rescue scenario involving several agencies and expense at a cost of approximately $50,000.00. The extreme end to our scenario would have the family drown. Quantifying the loss of human life, especially children, has been and will continue to be a fiercely heated legal debate. For this discussion the loss of life is 5 million each, the emergency responders attempted rescue and retrieval at a cost of $50,000.00. FEMA's Benefit -Cost Analysis (BCA) will be used to evaluate the proposed mitigation strategies that are not obviously have a cost benefit ratio of one or greater. This tool will also be used when applying for grant funds to show that actions are cost effective. 4.5: Effects of Mitigation Actions on Existing /Future Building and Infrastructure The majority of the actions to be implemented within a year are public education and awareness. Education will allow residents to make better choices such as not building a home in W UI or flood hazard areas. This education would also educate them on how to make existing structures more resilient to hazards both man -made and natural. This would include individual activities such as how to maintain defensible space to protect from wildfire to the importance of having flood insurance even when not located in a flood hazard area. The increased and regularly maintained building codes proposed by several jurisdictions would provide property protection to new residential, commercial and public structures from hazards. Encouraging local resident to build code plus is great but when the jurisdictions make themselves the example the message seems to be much clearer. Using the goals of the Hazard Mitigation Plan the local jurisdictions plans to lead by example and go a step farther than is necessary to mitigate against threats. Existing structures will be affected as well with the proposed mitigation strategies. As older structures are demolished the updated building codes will go into effect with the new structure being subject to current codes. Local jurisdictions plan to develop ha hazard database that will be a justification tool for repetitive loss properties, unidentified flood hazard areas, and other vulnerabilities that may be questioned. 190