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Bolstering Resilience Through Hazard Mitigation Planning

March 6, 2025

Today’s Speakers:

• Ellen Chappelka is a Coastal Resilience Specialist for the WA Emergency Management Division. Ellen works on the interagency Coastal Hazards Organizational Resilience Team with Washington Sea Grant, WSU Extension, and WA Department of Ecology. She assists communities in addressing coastal hazards through coordination, resource connection, technical assistance, and planning. She’s particularly interested in strengthening connections between state agencies and local communities. Ellen holds a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She also holds a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University where she double majored in Public Health and Homeland Security. Her time in Louisiana helped her develop a lifelong passion for coastal management.

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• Kevin Zerbe is the Hazards Analysis & Resilience Planning Program Supervisor at WA Emergency Management Division. Hazards Analysis & Resilience Planning, HARP for short, is responsible for providing the state with a scientific basis for effective and data driven decision-making for disaster resilience. This includes statewide natural hazard risk assessments, developing state and local hazard mitigation plans, and working directly with local partners to identify and design effective risk reduction projects. Kevin’s background is in climate adaptation and spatial statistics, and he’s been with WA EMD for about five years.

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• Noah Linck is a Coastal Planner at the WA Department of Ecology. His focus at Ecology is working with coastal communities across Washington on coastal hazards and climate resiliency. Additionally, he co-manages the Coastal Hazard Resilience Network and supports the sea level rise rulemaking process for Washington. Noah has an M.S. from the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs from the University of Washington and a B.S in conservation biology from the University of Minnesota.

Agenda:

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• 12:00 - 12:05 - Welcome and Context

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• 12:05-12:10 - Coastal Hazards Resilience Network overview

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• 12:10-12:15 - Floodplains by Design Network overview

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• 12:15-12:40 - Ellen Chappelka and Kevin Zerbe

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• 12:40-12:55 - Discussion

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• 12:55-1:00 - Closing

The Washington Coastal Hazards Resilience Network�(CHRN)

CHRN’s Mission

Objective 1: Create a Coastal Hazards Resilience Network in Washington State.

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Objective 2: Increase understanding of coastal hazard vulnerability and strengthen local capacity to improve coastal resilience in Washington. 

Projects Associated With CHRN

• CHRN Website
• Hazard Resources
• Hazard Project Mapper
• PNW Coastal Hazards Newsletter
• Knowledge Exchange
• Lunch and Learns
• Annual Meeting (June 9th)

Noah Linck - Washington State Department of Ecology

noah.linck@ecy.wa.gov

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Chandler Countryman - Washington Sea Grant

ccount@uw.edu

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Ellen Chappelka - Washington Emergency Management Division

ellen.chappelka@mil.wa.gov

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www.wacoastalnetwork.com

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Floodplains by Design (FbD)

An ambitious public-private partnership that includes:

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• Capital grant program led by the Department of Ecology;

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• Network of local agencies, tribes, NGOs, and landowners who build partnerships to plan and implement projects that improve floodplain resilience; and

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• A “backbone” team led by Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) that seeks to sustain and grow integrated floodplain management policy and practice in Washington State.

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More Info on FbD

Website: https://floodplainsbydesign.org/

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Contacts:

Matt Gerlach, WA ECY

matt.gerlach@ecy.wa.gov

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Allan Warren, BEF

awarren@b-e-f.org

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Lisa Nelson, WA ECY

lisa.nelson@ecy.wa.gov

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COHORT: An interagency team to address coastal hazards and coastal resilience across disciplines 

Holistic Mitigation Engagement

>50 Projects COHORT has  supported

Reach out with requests!

Contact COHORT to discuss your projects – no matter what stage they’re in!

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Hazard Analysis & Resilience Planning at WA EMD

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Kevin Zerbe

Hazard Analysis & Resilience Planning Program Supervisor

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

What is the HARP Program?

• Purpose: Provide a scientific basis for effective decision-making around disaster resilience in WA
• Hazard analysis
• Risk assessment
• Developing hazard mitigation plans

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Current status of local and tribal hazard mitigation plans in WA (FEMA, 2024)

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

Statewide risk assessment process

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Statewide Risk Assessment

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

State Enhanced Hazard Mitigation Plan

• Developed by HARP program
• Updates every five years
• 14 total hazards (natural + human-caused)
• Outlines statewide goals for risk reduction
• “Enhanced” status = more funding

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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

HARP role in hazard mitigation planning

• Technical assistance
• Informal reviews
• Ad hoc questions
• Attending planning team meetings
• Providing resources, information, data
• Formal review and State approval
• First official checkpoint for any local HMP or tribal HMP funded through EMD (voluntary otherwise)
• May include required revisions prior to FEMA review
• Submit to FEMA on jurisdiction’s behalf, work with FEMA to ensure approval

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Plan Review Cycle

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

Local/Tribal Hazard Mitigation Plans

• Locals write the plan, HARP provides support
• Local plan must meet FEMA requirements
• HARP reviews plans, work directly with FEMA on approval
• Upon approval eligible for many types of disaster aid and mitigation grants

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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

COHORT/HARP Nexus

• COHORT conducts extensive outreach in community
• Brings community concerns to HARP to quantify
• Quantified hazards allow for adaptation, mitigation, and justifies future funding opportunities

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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

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Establishing the foundation for further development and evolution

• Extensive data collection and analysis
• Preliminary modeling and predictive analytics
• Identification of research gaps and needs

• Statistical modeling identifies primary drivers of wildfire hot spots and intensities
• Identification of flood hazard hot spots using a statistical analysis of stream gage data
• Projection of the geographic extent of WA hazard zones by 2100 Disaster vulnerability quantified at Census tract scale

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Capabilities beyond 2023:

2023 SEHMP

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

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END GOAL: State-of-the-art, full-scale hazard risk and vulnerability assessment for WA

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Four phases:

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1. Identify and characterize hazard-prone areas (i.e., hazard hot spots)
2. Explain why hot spots are located where they are
3. Predict where hot spots are most likely in the future and project changes in exposure and extent
4. Overlay known structural and social vulnerability data onto current and future hot spots

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

Hazard Analysis and Research

• Understand hazards
• Why do hazards happen where they do?
• Why do hazards happen when they do?
• Understand risk
• Where is “harm’s way” and what is located there?
• Does (or will) the location of “harm’s way” change over time?
• If so, what drives that change?

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Wildfire hot spots based on wildfire locations between 1970 and 2020. (Zerbe et al., 2024)

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

• National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Repetitive Loss (RL) structures (1977-2022) aggregated by hexagon cell
• Hotspots may indicate areas of high riverine flood risk (TBD?)
• Next steps:
• Refine the hotspot map
• Map spatiotemporal variation of RL locations and claim $$

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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

Thank you!�����Questions?

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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION

“A disaster-ready and resilient Washington State”

Upcoming

Funding and Policy Group: Tuesday March 11, 10-12.

Please sign up here: https://floodplainsbydesign.org/participate/funding-policy/

Link to Agenda and Packet: https://app.box.com/s/pij2l9qoakixrr8we5xkresn8wavv4zw

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Next L&L: Thursday, April 3, 12 - 1pm: Topic now TBD