PAST EVENTS

2002 Hazard Mitigation Strategy Development Forum
Project Impact Cape Cod hosted local officials, coastal specialists, planners, and hazard/emergency managers at a forum that helped them develop a strategy for minimizing or eliminating long-term risks to people and property from natural hazards such as storms and coastal flooding. Hazard mitigation efforts such as relocating, elevating, and flood-proofing structures in coastal flood zones, installing hurricane straps in roofs of buildings, and promoting sound land use planning based on risk assessments, were discussed.

The goals of the forum were:

• to recognize that the Cape is vulnerable to serious weather-related hazards. Communities can and should take action now--hazard mitigation in advance of the next storm.
• to identify needed structural projects that will mitigate some of the area's greatest hazards. Participants learned about and used risk assessment maps and other resources.
• to distribute new risk assessment maps compiled by Project Impact Cape Cod to each town in attendance; and
• to release a Request for Proposals for nearly $100,000 for Cape communities to conduct structural mitigation projects.

A team from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) based at Prescott College, Arizona, previewed a computer-based model, hazard mitigation, and risk from growth. This highlight of the forum, brought to Cape Cod through the combined efforts of Project Impact, the Cape Cod National Seashore, MEMA, and DEM, presented technologies, data, and public processes that can integrate disaster mitigation planning with land use planning. Three-dimensional "fly-throughs" of hypothetical future disaster scenarios were overlain on future community growth scenarios. Models and the public process developed by the NASA/Prescott College project team can generate future growth scenarios for a community out to 2050. A disaster of a given type and intensity may be superimposed on selected scenarios to produce damage estimates. The unintended consequences of growth into hazardous areas can become vividly clear with NASA's computer-based modeling technique. The ability to visualize various scenarios can result in better planning and the building of safer communities. This modeling can help a community choose the risk/reward balance most acceptable to its values.

Other presenters discussed regional risk and vulnerability assessments, examples of local and regional hazard mitigation projects, and future federal, state, and local planning and funding possibilities. Hazard mitigation planners were on hand during a working session to help each town use its map to focus on vulnerable areas and to begin to identify needed hazard mitigation projects.

2001 Disaster Resistance Workshop
The Cape Cod Commission held a local kick-off event on March 26, 2001, a workshop titled "Creating a Disaster Resistant Cape Cod." The half-day session introduced Project Impact and featured presentations on hazard mitigation in the area.

The workshop was designed for town planners, conservation commissioners, emergency managers, public works officials, elected officials, and the public. It was sponsored by FEMA, the Commission, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management, the Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Office, the Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Program, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Sea Grant Program, and the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension.

Disaster-resistance workshop participants filled the Harwich Community Center on March 26.		National Weather Service Hydrologist and Hurricane Program Leader David Vallee discussed hurricanes from Cape Cod's past.
Vallee reviewed National Weather Service data on hurricanes and major storms affecting Cape Cod.		Vallee demonstrated the potential impacts of heavy rainfall, high winds, and storm surges on Cape Cod.