CAMERON, Texas (KRHD) — Milam County officials are seeking to make investments in public safety through an updated hazard mitigation plan.
- The Hazard Mitigation Plan helps county and city officials identify risks to apply for grants and invest in resources like infrastructure.
- The plan is updated every five years to help minimize damage during unexpected events like tornadoes.
- The county is holding its final public hearing on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at Bea's Kitchen.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
After weeks of severe weather, Milam County officials like Emergency Management Coordinator Kenzie Oliver are hoping to invest in the community's safety.
They're updating the county's hazard mitigation plan.
"Everyone in the county does one. Sometimes the cities do one, as well. The idea is just to like, figure out what kind of hazards we face," Oliver said.
Updated every five years, the plan helps Oliver identify risks in our community.
"It would kind of like flooding, you know, terrorists, tornado, you know, whatever could harm people, essentially, on a mass scale," she said.
And once a plan is drafted, she and other leaders can apply for grants to invest in infrastructure like roads without costing taxpayers.
"It costs the taxpayers less overall, right," she said.
And it will reduce the impact these dangers have on our neighbors.
Oliver tells me she's hoping to apply for a grant to help out when tornadoes hit.
"This plan is, again, a prerequisite so that we can apply to get tornado-proof shelters and that individuals can get like completely funded up to $6,000 safe rooms for their own property," she said.
But it doesn't just only apply to new construction.
It's also about investing in our first responders.
"For the police departments and stuff like that, it can be like, 'Well... we lost power when the last tornado came through.' So you could be like, 'Well, we need a generator that way our dispatch doesn't go down," she said.
But what does all this mean for our community?
"It would just make it, they'll make it less costly to the public in a long term because, I mean, the idea of hazard mitigation is to minimize the recovery costs when a disaster does hit," Oliver said.
