Local Hazard Mitigation Plan

The City of Colton is preparing an update to our Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP). This plan will inform members of the public, elected officials, and City staff on ways to make Colton a safer place to live, work, and play.

Purpose

The updated LHMP will describe the threats that Colton faces from natural and human-caused hazards, and provide steps that the City and community members can take to decrease these threats proactively, before disasters occur. This will help reduce injury, property damage, economic harm, and other impacts of natural and human-caused disasters. The updated LHMP will cover nine hazards:

  • Drought
  • Flooding (incl. dam failure)
  • Geologic hazards (incl. landslide and subsidence)
  • Man-Made Hazards (incl. infrastructure failure, hazardous materials, terrorism)
  • Seismic hazards (incl. earthquake, fault rupture, liquefaction)
  • Severe weather (incl. extreme heat, severe wind, severe winter weather)
  • Wildfires

In addition to helping protect Colton against these hazards, an LHMP makes our City eligible for future grant funding opportunities from the federal government that can be used to implement activities in the community that enhance safety and emergency preparedness. An updated and valid LHMP also provides greater flexibility in receiving financial help from the State when a disaster does occur.

Hazard Mitigation

Hazard mitigation recognizes that, while we can't stop disasters or other hazardous situations from happening, governments and community members can work to reduce the harm that these events cause. Mitigation is taking action before a hazardous event occurs, such as an earthquake or wildfire, so that the community suffers less damage. This helps protect against injury and loss of life, saves public and private property from harm, reduces the time to recover from a disaster, and decreases the impact to the quality of life that we enjoy.

Money Savings

In addition, hazard mitigation saves money. By making our homes, businesses, and public spaces more resilient to hazards so they suffer less damage, less money is necessary to repair or rebuild our community when a disaster eventually happens. Studies have shown that every dollar spent on mitigation activities saves an average of four dollars on response and recovery costs.

Mitigation activities can take many forms. Some examples include:

  • Construction projects, such as retrofitting existing homes, businesses, and infrastructure so they are less likely to be damaged by a disaster.
  • Changing land use and building codes, helping to ensure that new buildings are constructed outside of dangerous areas and are better able to resist damage from a hazard event.
  • Maintaining infrastructure and government services, ensuring that they are working at their best when a disaster occurs.
  • Conducting educational campaigns so that community members know about the potential for hazards and what they can do to be safer.
  • Protecting open space and other natural resources, using the benefits of local ecosystems to help protect our community.

Previous Plans

Colton prepared an LHMP in 2011. However, these plans need to be updated every five years, to remain eligible for FEMA grant funding. This helps ensure that they include the best available information, contain new ideas and best practices to improve safety, and comply with all new laws.

Help our community by completing our Hazard Mitigation Project Survey that will be used for the 2018 update. Take the Spanish Version of the Hazard Mitigation Project Survey.

If you have comments or questions pertaining to natural hazard mitigation and the planning process, please email us.