DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — On Tuesday morning Volusia County hosted the second of two public meetings to gather residents input to update the Emergency Management Division’s Local Mitigation Strategy Plan, which outlines strategies to reduce disaster risks, and the Floodplain Management Plan, which focuses on minimizing flood risks and enhancing flood resilience.
These plans are a collaborative effort among Volusia County and the municipalities, with the updated plans requiring presentation and approval from their respective elected bodies.
More than 30 residents attended the meeting that took place at the Daytona Beach Regional Library.
The goal of the meeting was to gather public input in terms of the new mitigation plan. However, the topic that kept coming up during the discussion among residents was the need to address flooding concerns and take action now.
Volusia County is required by FEMA to update its local mitigation strategy and floodplain management plan every 5 years. During the sessions, staff members went over a presentation outlining existing plans, explaining the update process, answering questions and gathering public feedback.
“Volusia County is in the process of updating its local mitigation strategy, which is one of the plans that we’re required by FEMA to have in order to be eligible for things like hazard mitigation funds or disaster relief funds post-event,” Volusia County Emergency Management Director Clint Mecham said.
The plan covers 17 categories, including storms, wildfires, cybersecurity threats, among others. The county also presented residents three separate flood-related surveys to get their feedback: one for private residents, one for businesses and one for homeowners associations.
Although the meeting was not intended specifically for flooding concerns, that was the main concern among residents.
“Flooding obviously was a big topic. We get that. We're just we're just on the heels of Milton. We understand people's frustration. We understand they're upset,” Mecham said. “We're trying everything we can to as a community, get everybody back to normal just as rapidly as possible. And it's never fast enough.”
Daytona Beach resident Catherine Pante was among those attending the meeting.
“The meeting is supposed to be a mitigation meeting, but it didn't seem like it was really mitigating because we have ideas as far as us residents. And one of the main problems that's causing the flooding is development induced flooding,” Pante said.
She owns two properties in Volusia County and says both homes have flooded.
“We just need to change things so that we can do better. We can't continue like this. People can't keep being flooded out of their homes or the state of Florida is going to have nothing. People are going to move out of here faster than they came here,” Pante said.
Port Orange resident Rob Pasternak also attended and pointed out the need for a building moratorium countywide.
“It seems obvious to most that a building moratorium would stop some of this runoff flooding and overrun of the current infrastructure that it's clearly infrastructure that’s undersized for the amount of people that it serves,” Pasternak said.
He and other residents echoed the sense of urgency in addressing flooding.
“We do have to build intelligently. Obviously, we need homes for people. But what's more important is to take care of the people who live here now, who call this area their home now and who are flooding out of their homes now,” Pasternak said.
Mecham said the input from today’s and yesterday’s meeting will be taken into consideration for the plan and to address flooding concerns.
“We're going to take the information that we that we got from our citizens today. We're going to take that back,” Mecham said. “Our staff will huddle up and we'll see what else we can come up with for additional means to provide that communication and make sure that we're getting that message out to absolutely as many people as we can.”
He said the goal is to have the new local mitigation strategy plan ready by February 2025.
The next meeting for the conclusion of public input for this plan is scheduled for Dec. 13 at 9 AM.
For residents who were unable to attend the meetings in person, the presentation materials and the surveys will be available at volusia.org.