(Seguin) — Guadalupe County will be looking for public input when it comes to preparing for the next flood, severe storm or other disaster.
Guadalupe County wants the public to be on hand as it updates its Hazard Mitigation Action Plan Residents are being encouraged to take part in the process by attending a public meeting Tuesday, Sept. 22 at the Guadalupe County Development Center.
Bryce Houlton, Guadalupe County assistant fire marshal and emergency management coordinator, says the plan serves as a roadmap for identifying hazards and determining how the county can address them.
“The Hazard Mitigation Plan itself is the county’s guide to identifying different types of hazards from natural disasters. So hurricane, flooding, severe weather, things like that. And we go through all those different elements and we identify the different vulnerabilities or gaps, as we call them, and we actually identify those and we try to figure out a way to mitigate against them, whether that’s flood control protection projects, whether that’s dams or raised roads, generators for critical infrastructure, all those different kinds of things,” said Houlton.
Houlton says public participation is very important. He says that’s because county officials want to make sure the plan reflects what residents are actually experiencing throughout Guadalupe County.
“We have this plan to be able to go after state and federal money to mitigate against those things and protect those assets if need be. And it involves public input because of course, we looked at it, but we want to make sure there’s nothing we’re missing. So that’s why we bring the public in to get their feedback on the plan. Is there anything we’re missing or anything they think we need to look at further when it comes to that? You know, the community knows the area better than anybody else. And so that’s why we bring the public in,” said Houlton.
Houlton says one example of how residents can help is their knowledge of the area.
“I’ll give you a good example. So roughly Guadalupe County has over 200 low water crossings and the last two large rain events we had the one in July this year and then the one last July 5th, we actually identified almost a dozen new low water crossings because of the growth. So because of development and the developers, some of the water has changed the way it flows across these fields of pastures. It goes across our city county and state roads. And so having that public input going, hey, this is a low-lying area. This floods now where it may not have flooded before, that allows us to identify it, add that to the list to where we can potentially look at whether that’s a road elevation or our box culverts. And that could be, you know, hazard mitigation fund money, or it also could be county general fund money because the county also spends money every year to raise the water crossings. So that’s a really easy example,” said Houlton.
The Hazard Mitigation Action Plan meeting will be held at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the county’s development center. The development center is located at 310 IH 10 West just south of the Guadalupe County Jail.