Pickens County Fire Chief and EMA Director Bob Howard presided over a public hearing for the proposed Pickens County Hazard Mitigation Plan on Thursday. The hearing was the second and last opportunity for citizens to review the plan and make suggestions or comments regarding the proposal.

One may ask what exactly the plan is. As outlined in the attached file, “Pickens County and the cities of Jasper, Nelson and the town of Talking Rock have developed this Hazard Mitigation Plan Update as an effort to minimize property damage and loss of life” due to disaster occurrences within the county. With the recent 100-year floods the plan seems especially pertinent.

The plan is a federal grant program that is reviewed and re-structured every five years.

From here, Charles Jones, Northwest Georgia Regional Commission Community Planner, will submit the plan to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) for their approval. Once that process is completed, the plan will return to each independent contributing governmental entity for approval by their governing boards.

The only persons in attendance at the meeting Thursday were governmental representatives, Jones and media. Therefore, the plan will be submitted to FEMA in the attached draft form.

Hazard Plan