Ketchikan Gateway Borough holds town hall to update FEMA-required all-hazards mitigation plan

Ketchikan Gateway Borough emergency manager Steve Rydeen and the City of Ketchikan’s fire chief and emergency manager, Rick Hines, convened a town hall with planners from AECOM to gather public input on a mandatory five-year rewrite of the borough’s all-hazards mitigation plan, officials said.

The update is required by FEMA and is intended to identify natural and other hazards facing the borough, assess vulnerable critical infrastructure and list mitigation actions that make the jurisdiction eligible for federal mitigation grants, Jessica Evans, a planner with AECOM, told attendees. "The hazard mitigation plan is intended to be a planning tool for the community to look at all of the natural hazards that are facing Ketchikan and the island," Evans said.

Officials said the current hazard inventory for the borough and city lists 12 hazards: flood, earthquake, tsunami, severe weather, ground failure (including landslides), wildland fire, erosion, dam failure, terrorism, cyber threats, infectious diseases and hazardous materials releases. "In our current mitigation plan, we have 12 identified hazards on the island or in the borough, and this does include the city," Rydeen said.

Speakers referenced recent local events to illustrate risks. Officials noted heavy rains that prompted monitoring of Ketchikan Lake and a 2020 evacuation tied to concerns at the lake’s dam. The group also cited past hazardous-material incidents tied to ammonia tanks at local canneries. Officials clarified that "ground failure" terminology in the plan expressly includes landslides, and said cyber threats appear to be a newer hazard under consideration.

Planners said the session represents an early stage of the update and that the immediate goal is to confirm the hazard list and collect local information to map hazards against infrastructure using GIS. "We are kind of in the very beginning, so we are just collecting information," said Kim Rowland, the project point of contact with AECOM.

Organizers invited the public to provide additional hazards or local knowledge now or by email, and said a draft plan will be published for public review when available. "Once we do have a draft, that will be available to the public to review, and we would very much encourage anyone who would like to review that plan and provide us feedback at that time as well," Evans said. Officials said they will announce the next town hall and other outreach through social media, the newspaper and the borough website.

There were no extended public comments during the meeting; one attendee offered brief praise for local emergency leadership. Officials closed by thanking attendees and reiterating plans to post the draft and solicit comments.

Contacts and next steps described at the meeting: the borough will post the draft mitigation plan for public comment and make outreach notices on social media and in local print outlets; specific draft dates and contact emails were described as available on the borough and city websites during the session but were not specified verbatim in the meeting transcript.