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Gadsden County commissioners briefed on countywide flood vulnerability assessment
Summary
Apalachee Regional Planning Council told commissioners a preliminary inventory found 2,438 "critical assets" countywide; staff will verify the list before the study is submitted to the state to support future resiliency funding.
Divina Lade, geospatial planning manager and resilience officer at the Apalachee Regional Planning Council, told the Gadsden County Board of County Commissioners that ARPC is conducting a countywide vulnerability assessment to identify assets exposed to flooding.
ARPC’s preliminary inventory identified 2,438 "critical assets," Lade said, including community and emergency facilities, infrastructure, natural and cultural resources, and transportation assets. She said the analysis maps projected flooding under two planning horizons — roughly 2040 and 2070 — and shows concentrations of at-risk assets in the town of Quincy.
"The project is all about identifying what are the critical assets in our in Gadsden County," Lade said. She told the board the study is being done under funding authorized by Florida Statute 380.093 and that the county’s finalized assessment will be submitted to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for inclusion in the state plan.
Lade described the next steps as verification meetings with county staff: emergency management, planning, economic development and other departments will be asked to confirm or correct the preliminary asset list. She said that publicly available data produced the initial inventory and that local staff knowledge is needed to remove obsolete entries and correct locations.
The board and staff discussed the value of the assessment for future funding. Lade said having a completed vulnerability assessment in the state plan strengthens eligibility for state resilience grants and federal infrastructure funds.
County officials did not set a public schedule for the verification meetings during the presentation but confirmed staff involvement will be needed before ARPC delivers a final product to FDEP.
