Local Mitigation Plan Review Tool

The Charleston Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan is the result of a community wide effort to

determine appropriate mechanisms to address the various types of hazards facing the

Charleston Region. The Charleston Regional Hazard Mitigation Program Committee, which

drafted this plan, consisted of members from each of the local government entities within

Charleston County, from State agencies with a focus on hazard mitigation, from Federal

agencies with a focus on hazard mitigation, and from the non-profit and public sectors. The

Emergency Management Program provides technical assistance consistent with the scope of

the mitigation program such as implementing building codes, fire codes, and land-use

ordinances. The committees established under the local “Project Impact” initiative also

provide input into the projects recommended in the plan. At the initiation of the planning

process utilized in drafting this plan, a questionnaire regarding hazard mitigation and

project prioritization was distributed through directed mailings as well as through meetings

with professional organizations to solicit input into the recommended contents for the plan.

Public meetings were also conducted in three areas throughout the Region to obtain

additional input from the citizens of the Region regarding the contents of this plan. In 2003,

as a result of changes to Federal law under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, special

purpose districts in Charleston County joined the planning process so they would have the

opportunity to adopt an approved hazard mitigation plan and meet the new requirements

of the Act. All of the original plan signatories have continued to participate in this plan

(none have dropped out) and all of the Special Purpose District Governments that adopted

the plan during 2004 (see Attachment II-D) have continued to participate in the planning

process through 2009. For the 2012-2013 Plan, the Town of James Island was not included

due to a court decision in June 2011 that dissolved the town following a lawsuit with the

City of Charleston. Residents of the dissolved town were considered part of Unincorporated

Charleston County during the update cycle for 2012-2013. The Town of James Island has

been included in the plan as its own entity once again, from the 2013-2014 plan onward.

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additional government entities have joined the planning process and adopted the plan since

2004: namely the College of Charleston and the Charleston County School District. Roper

St. Francis has requested to be added to this year’s plan. Roper St. Francis will be submitting

an “Action Plan” only, due to joining the program as of May 2015. All of the local

government entities within Charleston County are now participating in the plan and have

adopted the plan. During 2014-2015, a questionnaire was distributed to the plan signatories

and others with an interest in hazard mitigation to determine if there were any changes to

hazard mitigation and project prioritization since the last questionnaire was distributed in

2006-2007. The results of this survey are included in this plan, as applicable. The planning

Local Mitigation Plan Review Tool

Executive Summary 9

process is more thoroughly explained in Section II of this plan. The plan has been drafted in

such a manner that the local government entities within Charleston County are able to

prepare an action plan for their respective entities and adopt this plan for their use within

their government entity. This cooperative approach enables the Region to have a more

standardized way of addressing hazards which face all of the government entities, and also

avoids a duplication of effort that would occur if all of the government entities individually

undertook this type of planning initiative.

As a strengthening of this cooperation among the communities a Program for Public

Information (see Section IV) was established for 2012-2013 as part of the region’s on-going

efforts to better inform its citizenry on proper preparedness and mitigation measures to be

undertaken to make the region more resilient to those natural hazards that pose the greatest

threat of loss and damage. In the upcoming years, the program will be improved upon and

enhanced in order to protect lives and raise awareness of important issues.

The Charleston Regional Plan is unique in the fact the plan is updated annually. This

allows a continual planning process to keep the plan current, the jurisdictions involved, and

the history more dynamic.

1.2 – Hazard Assessment

The Charleston Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan is based upon the results of the

questionnaires and the comments received through both committee and public meetings.

The plan includes in Section III a ranking of the types of hazards facing the Charleston

Region, with hurricanes being the most serious threat, followed by flooding, tornadoes,

earthquakes, wildfires, hazardous material incidents, terrorism activities, and other hazards

(such as winter storms and drought). Additional hazards for which the possibility of

occurrence is much more remote or non-existent, such as tsunamis, dam failure, volcanoes,

landslides, avalanches, land subsidence, and expansive soils are also now discussed in the

plan to meet Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 requirements. The hazard description section of

the plan provides a brief description of the nature of the hazard for these types of hazards

within the Charleston Region. The discussion section of the plan provides a more detailed

description of the history of hazard event incidents in the Charleston Region. As this section

illuminates, the Charleston Region has had numerous, mostly localized, hazard events and a

few large-scale hazard events (e.g. Hurricane Hugo in 1989, earthquake of 1886) throughout

our history. Local Mitigation Plan Review Tool