Hattiesburg City Council members are expected to vote at their Dec. 18 meeting on six items regarding the city’s Community Rating System, a voluntary incentive program offered by the National Flood Insurance Program regarding community floodplain management activities.
The plan, which was recently presented to the council by Nick Williams of the city’s Planning Department and former floodplain manager Lisa Reid, would include revisions to the current flood ordinance, including enclosure limits for elevated structures and regulations to keep structures from being built in a dam inundation area. Officials also are seeking to revise and update the city’s drainage and maintenance resolution.
“Basically, just breaking it into two entities, such as maintenance and improvement,” Williams said. “This is an ongoing thing that we’re currently collaborating with the Public Works Department, and we plan on having some more updated information from them this week.”
The plan would also implement a Program for Public Information/ Coverage Improvement Plan. The PPI, which would be the first in Mississippi, outlines outreach needs, flood insurance promotion and other items to inform the public about safety and precautions to be taken before, during and after a flood.
“It’s a committee that (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) suggests,” Williams said. “We actually have these documents already in effect; it’s just a matter of submitting it to (council) for implementation.”
The plan also includes a Digitally Interactive CRS Modification Application, which would be the first fully digital CRS modification application in the state.
“Nick and Lisa have done an incredible job,” Planning Division Manager Ginger Lowrey said. “They’re really turning around our CRS program and expanding it, and they’re bringing it up to date with the current CRS manual. So there’s a lot of work that’s gone into that.”
If the plan is implemented, officials will be able to file grants for any of the measures or programs included within.
“So we tried to put as much in there as we could,” Reid said. “Some of it’s next year; some of it’s five years down the road.
“But we wanted to get as many things in there as we could so if a grant adoption became available, we would be able to apply for it. If it’s not in the plan, we can’t apply for it.”
