SNOW HILL – Old data, flawed information and unanswered questions led county officials to delay adoption of the Worcester County Hazard and Resilience Plan.
While there were no comments from the public Tuesday, a hearing on the county’s hazard mitigation plan yielded criticism from the Worcester County Commissioners. They questioned the content of the lengthy plan and the fact that the consultant the county hired to develop it was not present.
“This whole report is based on facts that are laid out that I think are questionable,” Commissioner Chip Bertino said. “That’s the motivation for my questions.”
According to Billy Birch, the county’s director of emergency services, the county has to update its hazard mitigation plan every five years. Last year, the county hired consultant Smith Planning & Design to assist in the process. Birch said officials were provided with a progress update in December and that since then the county had received FEMA and MEMA approval conditional upon the commissioners’ adoption of the plan.
Bertino was quick to present questions and concerns about facts cited in the plan. Birch said much of what was in the plan came from the state.
“All the data that was produced by the state, because the state also has to do a hazard mitigation plan, is what our report was based off of,” he said.
Bertino said Birch had no way of knowing if “what the state put in there was necessarily based on science.”
Birch said he could check with the consultant.
“If he or she were here maybe that question could have been answered,” Bertino said.
He added that he wanted to make sure the county wasn’t obligated to change its zoning practices, for example, based on the information included in the plan.
“I don’t want us to be forced to go down a road, because we accept this, that’s contrary to what we have done as a community so far,” Bertino said.
He went on to question reports referenced in the plan, some of which were more than a dozen years old, and other statements he considered dubious.
Commissioner Jim Bunting voiced similar frustrations with the plan.
“I think it should be based more on facts,” he said. “All this stuff that’s not based on science or actual information shouldn’t be in there.”
He asked what sort of changes the county could make to the plan.
Birch said changes should be made but pointed out the plan in front of the commissioners was what had been given to state and federal agencies. He said the changes being considered should have been made to the plan before it was sent to MEMA and FEMA.
The commissioners asked what repercussions the county faced if approval of the plan was delayed.
“If we decided not to have a plan at all, that’s where we’re in jeopardy,” said Weston Young, the county’s assistant chief administrative officer.
He said the plan was ultimately meant to identify hazards and could help the county when it applied for grants. He acknowledged that some of the models and information included in it weren’t exact.
“There’s a lot of assumptions,” he said. “Most of them could be faulty.”
Bertino said was still not satisfied with the contents of the plan.
“There are flaws in this, I believe, in the narrative as well as the data points being used,” Bertino said. “As far as the models are concerned, you want to prepare for the worst I understand that. My point is this document has flawed information in it and that’s a concern. If that can’t be edited correctly, that’s very telling.”
The commissioners agreed to table a decision on the plan while the consultant provided answers to their questions.
