Kosciusko County Emergency Management Agency Director Ed Rock talks about the countywide multi-hazard mitigation plan at the Warsaw City Council meeting Monday, March 4. Council approved the plan.

WARSAW — Warsaw City Council became the latest to sign off on the Kosciusko County Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan, during the meeting held last night, March 4.

But what does that mean exactly?

The plan has been assembled by Ed Rock, the county’s emergency management agency director, with the support of most of the communities in the county, and outlines longterm plans to avert or ways to respond to various types of disasters.

The 182-page report touches on a wide variety of disasters, including floods, earthquakes, thunderstorms, droughts, winter storms, fire hazards, tornadoes and infectious disease outbreaks. It represents a revision of the 2015 mitigation plan and has already been accepted by Federal Emergency Management Agency. Local jurisdictions within the county that participated are now being asked to approve it

Participating entities included the county and seven towns and cities. Four of those jurisdictions have approved the plan.

Rock said they used information from everyone who participated and assembled lists of hazards for each community and ranked them in order of perceived threats.

Rock had numerous meetings with numerous communities as they assembled the data and a contractor was hired to create the report.

In addition to approval by Warsaw, Rock said he received notification that Milford Town Council OKd its plan Monday night. Submission of resolutions from all the participating jurisdictions will represent a major milestone.

“That closes the book on writing the plan. Now, it opens the book on the funding aspect of it,” Rock said

That will involve FEMA determining which projects within the plan, if any, would be funded.

The local report lists about 30 proposals on pages 112 to 117. Many are considered “on-going,” and range from dredging waterways and maintaining tiles to establishing new shelters throughout the county.

Approval of the plan also validates the national flood insurance program for local communities.

Mentone, Milford, and North Webster, Silver Lake, Warsaw and Winona Lake are members of the National Flood Insurance Program. The remaining communities of Burket, Claypool, Etna Green, Leesburg, Pierceton and Sidney, do not have identified flood hazard boundaries and chose not to participate in the program, the report said.