BISMARCK – Officials at the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services have recently tied the ribbon on the state’s 2024 Hazard Mitigation Plan that tells the story of hazards and threats across our state, and the updated strategies to mitigate their impacts.
The release of this plan comes on the heels of the extreme weather disasters that have wracked the United States this year, 15 of which have exceeded the $1 billion in recovery cost mark, making it the second highest on record and already nearing the yearly average of 20.4 $1 billion events per year from years 2019-2023 [ https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/state-summary/US?utm_medium=e… ].
"“Here in North Dakota, a lot of our disaster events, like floods, occur year after year. No one wants to keep reliving and paying for the same crisis year after year. This plan "shows the "thoughtfulness within the emergency management cycle—prepare, respond, recover, mitigate—to make us resilient for the future,” says Homeland Security Director, Darin Hanson, who oversees the state’s emergency management functions. "
FEMA requires all states to have a Hazard Mitigation Plan in place in order to receive mitigation grant funding. North Dakota was the first state in the region to achieve an enhanced status in 2018 and have kept the status intact since, allowing the state to receive an additional 5% federal funding. Funding goes to projects to mitigate the risks of future disaster events which could range from water diversion projects to burying electrical lines.
"“Since we achieved enhanced status, North Dakota’s share of Hazard Mitigation Grant Program dollars increased to an impressive $53.6 million for the five federally declared disasters that occurred between 2019 and 2021,” Justin Messner, NDDES-HLS Disaster Recovery and Mitigation Chief said."
A national study by the National Institute of Building Sciences found that each $1 spent in hazard mitigation resulted in an estimated $6 saved in recovery (National Institute of Building Science, 2018). North Dakota surpasses the national average with an estimated $6.54 saved for every $1 spent on mitigation. (Pew Charitable Trusts, 2019).
North Dakota has long been committed to a strong mitigation investment strategy. Due to past mitigation projects, it is estimated that North Dakota has prevented more than $1.9 billion in disaster damages and more than $24 billion in disaster recovery assistance since 1993 (NDDES, 2023).
NDDES worked closely with and would like to kindly thank the 106 private and public partners who contributed significantly to the project. Collaboration with our partners, as well as private citizens through community coffee conversations, ensures that the plan is comprehensive in its coverage and takes into account which threats and hazards that voices within our state find most pressing.
Work towards the plan, which is updated every five years, began in January of 2023 and was approved by FEMA February of 2024. Adversarial threats and illegal drug activity were themes of concern identified in the discovery phase and were broken out to better address the threat profiles. Other overall themes of the 2024-2029 plan include focus on underserved populations, climate change, and nature-based solutions.
The plan can be found at des.nd.gov.