The Wrangell Planning and Zoning Commission held a special meeting last week, June 4, to review the borough’s hazard mitigation plan. The plan, according to Economic Development Coordinator Carol Rushmore, is meant for city and other governing entities to better understand what kind of natural disasters it may be vulnerable to, the potential costs of those disasters, and ways that the risks can be lessened.
Wrangell’s plan was first created in 2010, and was in need of an update. She also said that the plan is supposed to be reviewed and updated every five years, and Wrangell is required to have it if it wants to qualify for certain federal grants.
“This basically is a requirement if we seek certain types of funding from the feds,” she said. “It depends what it is, I don’t have all the details. In 2010, the state hired a contractor to work with different communities around the state to develop a hazard mitigation plan. That is this plan here.”
The meeting’s agenda packet, including the entire mitigation plan and other documents related to it, was over 250 pages long. The commission focused on only two chapters of the plan, six and seven, which covers the vulnerability assessment and the mitigation strategy.
Chapter six is titled “Vulnerability Assessment.” According to this chapter, there are seven main natural disasters that Wrangell considers itself vulnerable to: Earthquake, flood, ground failure, tsunami, severe weather, volcanic ash, and wildland fire. According to this chapter, earthquakes present risks largely to infrastructure and people. This is the same case with floods, ground failure, and fire. Volcanic ash presents a slightly different risk, however.
“An eruption of significant size in southcentral Alaska will certainly affect air routes, which in turn affects the entire state,” the plan reads on page 6-32. “Other impacts include respiratory problems from airborne ash, displaced persons, lack of shelter, and personal injury. Other potential impacts include general property damage (electronics and unprotected machinery), structural damage from ash loading, state/regional transportation interruption, loss of commerce, and contamination of water supply.”
Severe weather also presents a unique risk to the Wrangell area. With most of Southeast Alaska facing a drought, unusual for the area, both the city’s water supply and hydroelectric power are being strained.
Table 6-1, in the plan, lists how “at risk” Wrangell’s buildings and people are to each of these risks, save for volcanic ash. According to this table, everything and everybody is 100 percent at risk, except for, apparently, floods. Commissioner Kate Hein asked about the chart, questioning why each hazard was put as a 100 percent risk, while the vulnerability to floods was kept blank.
“If an earthquake hit, our entire geographic area could be impacted, and potentially our entire population,” Rushmore explained. “That’s why 100 is in all of that. I don’t know why flood’s not in there. It should be.”
There is also an extensive list of facilities and infrastructure in chapter six. From city buildings, to churches, to local businesses, to roads, the location, value, and vulnerability of each part of Wrangell was listed. For example, city hall was listed at its location on 205 Brueger St. At any given point in the day, the chart reads that eight people might be located inside the building. The building is valued at roughly $1.7 million, and is listed as vulnerable to each of the natural disaster hazards save ground failure.
Commissioner Don McConachie pointed out what he saw as a mistake in the chart. The chart listed 9.9 miles of city-owned paved roads, valued at $50 million. McConachie said he was fairly certain there were more paved road in Wrangell than that, and the number probably needed updating.
“It says 9.9 paved road miles in here, I believe we have more than that now,” he said. “Are things like that going to be considered, because the amount of paved highway has increased?”
Rusmore said she would look into it, and see if the mitigation plan was only considering city roads or if it should also include state-owned roads. The commission agreed that state roads should probably be added, too.
There was also a discussion about areas at risk of damage from a tsunami. Hein said that not enough buildings and infrastructure had been labelled as vulnerable to a tsunami. McConachie pointed out that the post office was listed as “at risk,” while the Alaska Fish and Game building was not, despite the post office being at a higher elevation. Rushmore said that this was probably not a very well researched part of the plan, as tsunamis were considered unlikely, compared to other natural disasters. However, she agreed that Wrangell needed to be better prepared, and would look into it further.
The commission then looked at chapter seven of the plan, which covers, among other things, various ways the community can mitigate risks in the event of a natural disaster. Rushmore presented the commission with a draft of new proposed mitigation activities, as well as the list that was already in the plan. The draft of proposals came from a borough assembly work session in March, she explained
“So now you know what your hazards are,” she said, “and then it’s a question of, well, what can you do to try to minimize the impacts from a hazard?”
The existing list and the new proposals had several points in common. Both stated that increased outreach to the public on potential hazards and how to be prepared was a high priority. Another idea shared by both plans was to install a siren warning system through town. Other ideas on both lists involved the borough coordinating with other entities around Wrangell to better understand what resources they have available, who could respond to a disaster quickest, setting up emergency shelter designations, and developing back up plans in case the main plans fail.
There was one idea on the existing strategy that caught the commission’s attention, regarding severe weather. The plan was part of the public outreach goal of the strategy, putting together “special awareness activities” for the public. These could include Flood Awareness Week, Winter Weather Awareness Week, and others. Several commissioners liked the idea, and said they should give it more serious attention. McConachie said that it would be a great project for high school students.
“It would be a great senior project for a kid at school,” he said. “Just go in and do that one thing in October, or whatever the case may be, for their senior project.”
During the meeting, the commission also discussed adding underbrush management to the mitigation strategy, and emphasizing drought as a hazard to the community. They planned to continue their discussion of the strategy in future meetings. The planning and zoning commission is scheduled to meet next on Thursday, June 13, and again on July 11.
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