Nashville emergency management updates multi‑jurisdiction hazard mitigation plan; public input shapes 32 action items

Heidi Mariscal of the Metro Office of Emergency Management briefed the Sustainability Advisory Committee on updates to Davidson County’s multi‑jurisdiction hazard mitigation plan and sought committee input on mitigation priorities and funding approaches.

Mariscal described the plan as a collaborative, multi‑jurisdiction document that includes satellite cities, universities and numerous public, private and nonprofit partners. "I've been in emergency management for about 22 23 years now. And the mitigation plan is just 1 small piece of it," Mariscal said, noting the plan’s role in qualifying jurisdictions for federal hazard mitigation grants once approved by the state and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The update includes a public survey — Mariscal said the team received several hundred responses — and an assessment framework that combines an 11‑parameter impact and vulnerability rating with a likelihood table to compute a risk factor for each hazard. Using that methodology, the plan identifies flooding, tornadoes and winter storms as the top three hazards for Davidson County.

Mariscal said the plan contains 32 action items, 16 of which were placed in a new "recurring" section to avoid repetitive updates for long‑running mitigation activities. She gave sinkholes and landslides as an example of a gap the plan aims to address: the plan proposes creating a central repository to track geological incidents that currently lack a single agency owner. The plan also adds public health and communicable diseases to its hazards and provides appendices with historical data, watershed maps and planning maps.

On funding and implementation, Mariscal said each action item includes a likely responsible agency and potential funding sources — regular budgets, mitigation grants, capital funding or other options — but the plan does not bind agencies to expenditure. She warned that federal mitigation funding is subject to change and that some prior mitigation funds have primarily supported home buyout programs for flood risk reduction.

Committee members asked about geographic specificity and outreach. Mariscal said planning staff solicit ground‑level input from satellite cities and use historical incident data to identify local patterns, and she described frequent drills and exercises with stadiums, hospitals and other large institutions. Kendra and other staff noted parallel efforts — including a stormwater master planning process and climate adaptation discussions — intended to refine parcel‑level risk identification and to explore financing for green infrastructure.

Members also raised nature‑based solutions and green stormwater infrastructure. Mariscal and staff said the plan can incorporate such measures over time and that annual reviews are the mechanism to add new actions; the five‑year revision schedule governs major updates. Council member Alan Circle asked the committee for help collecting data to strengthen incentives for preserving mature trees as stormwater mitigation.

Separately, the Innovation Team updated committee members about an "Insulation for Impact" pilot in partnership with Nashville Electric Service and TVA to install insulation in older adults' homes. The program began with $75,000 and, after partner matches, expects to reach about 88 homes; staff described insulation as a high‑return, low‑cost energy efficiency measure and said applicants are being verified for eligibility.

Staff said the mitigation plan revision is being finalized for state and federal review with an anticipated submission in October. Mariscal encouraged continued public engagement and said the plan will be subject to annual reviews and a full revision every five years.