Announcements

January 13, 2020:

The kick off meeting was a successful start to this ongoing process. All in part due to the diligence shown by the partners of Cambria County that have gathered to ensure the safety and recovery of our fellow residents. Thank you again to all involved in this plan process.

February 21, 2020

Meeting with Ernie Szabo from PEMA and Mari Radford from FEMA, both of whom are Hazard Mitigation Specialists. This is a big opportunity for us having them to assist. We will be covering our previous plan and looking at the direction we are heading with this planning update. The meeting is at 1030 am at the Emergency Management Office in the conference room. Please let us know your attending by emailing us or calling 814-472-2050. We can use this in place of the scheduled meeting on the 24th, if this day works better for you.

This meeting was a very big success in terms of info gathering for our team. They were able to put us in a good direction and was able to give us a good overview of the 2016 plan, both the good and bad. Even though this was done by an outside vendor, it is a good base for us to build from considering that it was already an approved plan. Updates to this site will be forth coming as well, taking suggestions from them on how we can piece out the plan to see the sections needing updated easier and also to speed up the plan uploading. Right now it is very slow and in some cases it does not load correctly at all. If you are not receiving any of the emails and or have any questions please feel free to contact our office.

October 6, 2021

After a long hiatus due to many factors surrounding the current pandemic and other uncontrollable factors, we are back at the drawing board in attempts to get the HMP show back on the road. This morning the planning team has met with contractor MCM Consulting who will be handling the Hazard Mitigation Plan renewal. The many stakeholders were able to see the strict timeline set forth in order to make the time frame in which this plan needs to be completed with in. Soon the Planning team will be asked to meet again either in person or by combination of in person and virtually in accordance with current pandemic suggestions. Also, all municipal survey forms have been sent out to all sixty-three municipalities of the county in both electronic and paper form, with the requested return by date of October 25th, 2021. Please remind your local officials to get this completed as soon as possible. Please note all electronic correspondence will be sent to lepc@cambria911.com or phone calls can be directed to Emergency Management Office at 814-472-2050 M-F 8am to 4pm.

Thank you!

October 25, 2021

The Local Planning Team had a meeting to discuss completion of the Hazard ID and Risk Evaluation Worksheet. At the completion of the discussion it was found that we as a county have incurred many increases in the categories set forth. Also, agreed to add some new hazards that were not previously named in the plan. The following are being added: Opioid Epidemic, Emergency Services, Invasive Species, Civil Disturbance, Cyber Terrorism, Urban fire and Explosion, Hurricane / Tropical Storm, Wildfire, Disorientation, and Drowning. All of these will be spelled out in further detail in the planning.

October 28, 2021

The Local Planning Team along with Mike from MCM met to discuss the current schedule and some other punch list items. Capability assessments and Hazard ID worksheets were discussed, as well as the number of municipalities that did not submit. As of this meeting 28 municipalities have not reported, and the decision was made to again reach out to them via registered mail to secure that the information is being received at the location and signed for. The results that were received by the due date were discussed. Further discussion and addition of the 2016 hazards and the newly identified hazards for the 2022 plan. Next worksheet being covered is the Risk Factor Assessment spreadsheet, accompanied by the assessment tool definition sheet. As a group this was covered up to and including the landslide category. At this point looking at the interest of time, the decision on how to complete this was left to the group. Agreeing on completing this individually as a take away assignment, and to be completed by Wednesday November 3rd. Once the task is completed please forward it to Greg at EMA via email gschilling@co.cambria.pa.us and that will be then submitted to MCM for their staff to compile the results for the next LPT meeting on November 1o, 2021 at 1030hrs. This meeting will be available both in person and virtually. Always if there is any questions feel free to contact us for further assistance, again thank you all for participating in this expedited process.

November 10, 2021

The Local Planning Team along with our partners from MCM met again to do the Goals and Objectives Review from the 2016 HMP. The meeting was and looks to stay a combination of virtual and in person to accommodate everyone's needs during this enduring pandemic. The review found a very lacking previous set of goals and objectives in need of some overhaul, so Mike was looking into pushing out a new set that more reflected our needs and covering the shortcomings from previous planning aspects. Also covered was the status of the forms being sent to municipalities for their input and participation which is required in order to have the ability to adopt the county's HMP once it is complete and approved.

Later this date the county partners and MCM met with municipality representatives to cover the risk factor assessment tool that will now be distributed to all sixty three municipalities for completion. Participation of the meetings are still on the low side, however for future engagements there will be multiple offerings and times to assist in boosting municipality participation. As well as sending out all future correspondence via certified mail to verify the short comings and specific municipalities either not receiving the information or just disregarding the forms.

December 8th and 9th, 2021

Between these dates and the last meetings, EMA staff had put out all the applicable forms to all municipalities via certified US Mail. Along with the forms, there were choices of multiple locations and varying times available so that all could be accommodated with in our means to do so. After having low enrollment for the satellite location and evening sessions, they were discontinued. The Mitigation Form Development meeting was held at 3pm on December 8th, both in person and virtually with fair attendance. The LPT met in the morning on the 9th with the Form Development meeting following at 1pm both in person and virtually which was very well attended more so in person.

During the meeting with the LPT, the Goals and Objectives were looked on to be finalized with some minimal changes that reflect our findings from the risk assessments completed prior to this meeting. Otherwise the municipal representatives were presented with what worksheets that were still needed. Then covered the mitigation project forms, what details were needed and where to send them back into. Also, was discussed were the expectations of participation by the municipalities and how they planned on updating the plan on a yearly basis. By showing any progress made or simply by post disaster reviews.

The next meeting of the LPT will be on a virtual platform only, and the information for joining via zoom was sent to your email. The next public meeting is set to be on January 21, 2022. So there is plenty of time for all to complete the needed forms and to join in a meeting to satisfy your requirement for participation in order to adopt the county's Hazard Mitigation Plan.

January 21, 2022

The local planning team met again virtually with partners from MCM, and discussed the current status of the participation from municipalities in the county and where we are in the planning process. The attempt to tie up loose ends with non participating municipalities has been a challenge, however making some phone calls and sending emails almost all of the contacts have been made and paperwork has been coming into both the EMA office and directly to MCM. The public comment meeting date has been moved to February 3, 2022 with the meeting being conducted in the training room for Adult Probation on the second floor. This will be an in person meeting.