DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The Volusia County Emergency Management Division held the first of four public meetings Friday to update the county’s mitigation strategy and floodplain plan.

What You Need To Know

  • The Volusia County Emergency Management Division is updating its Local Mitigation Strategy Plan

  • Emergency Management Director Clint Mecham said the goal of updating the plan is to make Volusia County more resilient and to reduce disaster risks

  • On Oct. 7 and 8, the county will hold community engagement sessions to gather public feedback that will help update the mitigation plan

  • On Dec. 13, a final meeting will be held to discuss findings and the plan update

Volusia County’s Emergency Management Division is currently updating the county’s Local Mitigation Strategy (LMS) plan to minimize disaster risks.

The division kicked off its five-year review of the LMS during a meeting at the Emergency Operations Center on Friday. Emergency Management Director Clint Mecham said the goal of the plan is to outline strategies to reduce disaster risks.

“We update the plan every year, but this is the big revision of it,” he said. 

Mecham said the LMS is about making Volusia County as resilient as possible. 

“To be better able to withstand, whether they be man-made issues or Mother Nature-caused issues, so we can get our citizens back to the new normal as rapidly as possible post-event,” he said.

Mecham said the LMS is about reducing risks to critical infrastructure and addressing recurring issues. He said an example would be finding solutions for a roadway or lift station that continually floods during storms. 

“We really are looking to try and prevent that loss to those structures or that critical infrastructure,” Mecham said.

County officials said they are working with city leaders and the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council to update the plan. McKenna Korzeniewski, Resilience Planner II for the council, said they are analyzing recent disasters to update mitigation strategies.

“These are the disasters that have happened in the past five years,” Korzeniewski said. “This is what's impacted our people the most in our community.”

By reviewing disasters like Hurricane Ian, Korzeniewski said they can better prepare for similar events in the future and formulate the best response. 

“We need to be able to analyze how we responded and what we need to better respond in the future,” Korzeniewski said.

Throughout October, the Emergency Management Division will be holding community engagement sessions to gather public feedback that can help update the mitigation plan.

“That public participation is very important and encouraged,” Mecham said.

The first community engagement sessions will be held on Oct. 7 at 5:30 p.m. at the Daytona Beach Regional Library. The second session is Oct. 8 at 5:30 p.m. at the DeLand Regional Library. A final meeting will be held to share findings from the engagement session. It will be held on Dec. 13 at 9 a.m. at the Emergency Operations Center in Daytona Beach.

Reagan Ryan is a 2023 — 2025 Report for America Corps Member, covering the environment and climate across Central Florida for Spectrum News 13. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.