The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines Mitigation as sustained actions taken to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and property from hazards and their effects. Therefore, the goal of the Plan is to minimize or eliminate the long-term risk to human life and property from known hazards through effective mitigation. The Mission Statement of the Plan is, “Maintaining a secure and sustainable future through the revision and development of targeted hazard mitigation actions to protect life and property.”
Goal 1: Protect Public Health and Safety
Goal 2: Build and Support Local Capacity and Commitment to Continuously Become Less Vulnerable to Hazards
Goal 3: Increase Public Understanding, Support, and Demand for Hazard Mitigation
Goal 4: Protect New and Existing Properties
Goal 5: Maximize the Resources for Investment in Hazard Mitigation
Goal 6: Promote Growth in a Sustainable Manner
Key language from the 2019 Chemung County Hazard Mitigation Plan
HAZARD DESCRIPTION
FLOOD
Floods generally result from excessive precipitation. Inland or riverine flooding is a result of excessive precipitation levels and water runoff volumes within the watershed of a stream or river. Inland or riverine flooding is overbank flooding of rivers and streams, typically resulting from large-scale weather systems that generate prolonged rainfall over a wide geographic area, thus it is a naturally occurring and inevitable event. Some river floods occur seasonally when winter or spring rainfalls fill river basins with too much water, too quickly. Torrential rains from decaying hurricanes or tropical systems can also produce
riverine flooding.
HAZARD DESCRIPTION
THUNDERSTORM WIND
Thunderstorms create extreme wind events which includes straight line winds. Wind is the horizontal motion of the air past a given point, beginning with differences in air pressures. Pressure that is higher at one place than another sets up a force pushing from the high toward the low pressure; the greater the difference in pressures, the stronger the force. The distance between the area of high pressure and the area of low pressure also determines how fast the moving air is accelerated. Thunderstorms are created when heat and moisture near the Earth’s surface are transported to the upper levels of the atmosphere. By-products of this process are the clouds, precipitation, and wind that become the thunderstorm, and sub-hazards of thunderstorms are hail and lightning.
HAZARD DESCRIPTION
WINTER STORM
A Severe Winter Storm is defined as an event that occurs during the winter season that includes one or more of the following conditions: snow, ice, high winds, blizzard conditions, and other wintry conditions; causing physical damage or loss to improved property. It can range from a moderate snow over a few hours to a blizzard with blinding wind driven snow that can last for multiple days. During late October through mid-April, temperatures can range between 0° Fahrenheit and 32° Fahrenheit with February having the greatest average snowfall. Cold moisture combined with high wind and large accumulations of snow cause “Lake Effect” storms. Lake Effect storms leave huge quantities of snow with a few days in its wake. They primarily affect the western and central region of New York but have been known to affect the eastern portion of the State, if the storm becomes large enough.
How the 2019 Chemung County Hazard Mitigation Plan relates to STC's 2025 CEDS Update
Recognition of our region’s notable flood risk has been a part of the CEDS since 2012. Adding economic risk assessment due to the other two major hazards, Thunderstorm and Winter Storm, will strengthen the economic strategy and the document’s usefulness in the case of a similar hazardous event. Incorporating the Probably and vulnerability assessments in the Chemung county pan will give greater weight to the importance of land use planning for economic development decision making. Finally, The CEDS can be used to advocate for appropriate land uses/in-site resilience in parts of the region that are likely to be impacted by floods, thunderstorms, and winter storms.