Douglas County's Hazard Mitigation Plan

Hazard Mitigation Plan

In 2026, Douglas County is updating its hazard mitigation plan. The plan will address the risks posed to the County by hazards like wildfires, flood and drought, and identify specific strategies to help reduce or eliminate risks. To inform the plan, we need input from residents, stakeholders, and neighboring communities to identify safety issues and hazard areas in the county.

What is Hazard Mitigation?

Hazard mitigation is an action to help reduce long-term risks caused by hazards or disasters, such as flooding, severe weather or wildfires. The purpose of hazard mitigation is to protect people and structures and minimize the costs of disaster response and recovery. Hazard mitigation can take many forms: capital projects, policies, education and environmental protection.

Proactive mitigation leads to more cost-effective projects. By contrast, reactive mitigation tends to lead to severe damage and often more costly fixes; it simply costs too much to address the effects of disasters only after they happen. A surprising amount of damage can be prevented if we can anticipate where and how disasters occur and take steps to prevent those damages.

Douglas County’s Hazard Mitigation Plan

Hazard Mitigation Plans (HMP) are prepared and adopted by counties and municipalities with the primary purpose of identifying, assessing and reducing the long-term risk to life and property from hazard events. HMPs are most effective when they are based on a comprehensive, long-term plan developed before a disaster occurs.

This plan is an opportunity to detail a variety of potential hazards that could affect Douglas County residents and will also allow the county and participating municipalities to be eligible for future mitigation funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The primary hazards of concern in the county include dam failure, drought, earthquake, flood, geologic hazards, hazardous materials, pandemic, severe weather, severe winter weather and wildfire.

The study will focus on existing buildings and potential future development, infrastructure and lifelines that might be impacted.

What’s the Process?

There are seven phases in our process to develop a new Hazard Mitigation Plan before implementation:

Planning Process: Relevant studies, plans, and reports are collected along with communications resources that allow the public to be involved throughout the planning process. A planning team is “built” that consists of jurisdictional representatives, and local and regional stakeholders.
Risk Assessment: Potential locations and geographic extent of natural and human-caused hazards that can affect the county are identified along with their impacts and future probability. Scientific and anecdotal evidence of past events is collected and evaluated, and the hazards and losses the community has sustained are ranked high to low.
Public Involvement Strategy: During this phase, a comprehensive public engagement strategy will be developed to educate and increase awareness of the HMP planning process. This will include a series of social media posts, a project information brochure, and public meetings.
Mitigation Strategy: Local capabilities in emergency management, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), planning and regulatory authority, administrative and technical knowledge, finances, and education and outreach are assessed. Goals, objectives, and actions are evaluated and updated as needed. The planning team defines appropriate mitigation techniques and chooses and prioritizes mitigation actions and projects in the mitigation strategy.
Plan Maintenance: The HMP is a living document that must be regularly reviewed, updated, and maintained. A schedule including responsible parties or agencies involved with monitoring, evaluating, and updating the plan during its 5-year cycle is prepared. A process for integrating the updated Mitigation Strategy into existing plans and reports is outlined and a plan for continued public outreach and participation will also be determined.
Plan Update and Deliverables: The draft plan will be developed and assembled to meet all federal and state regulations.
Plan Adoption: The draft plan is made available for public comment and then submitted to the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (DHSEM) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for review and approval. Once the plan has been determined to meet all state and federal requirements and receives official approval, it should be adopted by all participating jurisdictions.
Project Management and Coordination: The actions, or projects, identified within the HMP are implemented and managed by the jurisdiction(s) which identified them. This phase lasts for the longevity of the plan for its 5-year cycle.
Implementation!

Frequently Asked Questions

What is mitigation?

Any sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to life and property from a hazard event. For example, in areas of the nation prone to floods, structures are elevated to reduce the risk of damage during high water level events.

How can you reduce or eliminate risk?

Identify mitigation actions, projects, activities or processes:

Local plans and regulations
Structure and infrastructure projects
Natural systems protection
Education and awareness programs

What grant funding is available?

FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant funding is available with a FEMA-approved Hazard Mitigation Plan (annual and post-disaster opportunities).

Where can I see the 2026 plan?

The final draft of the plan will be posted to this page.

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