Thank you all for the insightful input and ideas you’ve shared with us so far. Thanks to you we have accomplished so much already!
We are finishing up this phase in our project by finalizing our draft Hazard Mitigation Plan & Community Resilience Strategy for review with our many stakeholders. After final review from our stakeholders, we will submit the document to the New Hampshire Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Management for their review to ensure it meets requirements set forth by FEMA for hazard mitigation plans. With their approval, we'll be able to submit to the Board of Aldermen and the Mayor for final community adoption.
Your participation during this process has been more than helpful. We appreciate your feedback and questions on our map. All feedback has been incorporated into the Risk Assessment and Mitigation/Adaptation Strategy in our draft plan. After we put the final touches on the document, it will be posted on livablenashua.org/resilient for your review and comment!
Thanks again!
Thank you to everyone who has commented so far! To continue the dialogue, we’ve added some new questions about hazard mitigation. Click through these new topics in our comments section and post your ideas. We can’t wait to hear from you!
After the highly successful and well received Resilient Nashua Summit in December 2018 the project is rolling full speed ahead into 2019. Next three major events are the completion of the Hazard Mitigation & Community Resilience Plan, a public hearing on the plan, and a community recovery tabletop exercise. As required by FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation planning process, the public hearing will offer one additional opportunity after plan draft completion for questions and comments regarding the document and overall Resilient Nashua Initiative. Stay tuned to our website at www.livablenashua.org for more information about the hearing.
Stay tuned for updates on the 2019 efforts of the Resilient Nashua Initiative. We will be collecting additional input on proposed mitigation and adaptation actions throughout the month here on coUrbanize, so be sure to make sure your voice is heard by participating online!
Thank you to everyone who came out to the Resilient Nashua Summit. If you missed the event, don’t worry, you can still tell us your thoughts at courb.co/resilient!
We learned many new ideas and information from Cameron Wake of UNH Sustainability Institute, Rhett Lamb of City of Keene, Sarah Marchant of City of Nashua, Stephen Flynn of Northeastern Global Resilience Institute, & Pat Warner of Waffle House. Minutes from the meeting can be found here. All of their presentations can be found here. We hope that a video of the day will be available within the next month.
We obtained some great feedback from participants on what they walked away with:
- That resiliency is a about more than just preventing damage it has to do with planning for how to come back from certain things
- How Planning can fine tune their ordinances in the event a new master plan is implemented
- Best practices from different communities, data and research provided
- Our future is in our hands
- Emergency Preparedness is critical
- There are real things that can be done to prepare for the inevitable changes we are going to face
- the importance of acting to reduce carbon footprint within the next ten years
- "Climate change is real. We caused it. We can do something about it." - There are a lot of things that Nashua can do to combat climate change, but we all have to work together.
- March - April - May precipitation grouping, and learning from Keene & Nashua stakeholders
- Individual efforts make a difference in addressing climate change
I personally learned that Government Emergency Managers can't do it alone, and that there are too many complex interconnected systems. Risk reduction is only possible through multidisciplinary collaboration between public safety, community development, economic development, engineering/infrastructure, and public health...inside and outside your jurisdiction. And then you need to involve businesses (owners of the majority of the infrastructure), non-profits (disaster relief experts), and citizens (the real 1st responders in an emergency) to capture the majority of players in this space. Don't waste your time trying anything else.
Please continue to share your feedback and questions on our map at courb.co/resilient. Thanks!
Creating a Resilient Nashua requires a clear understanding of the community resources that are important to those that live, work, and visit the City. What community resources are important to you? Is it a local park? How about the pizza place downtown? Maybe it's a historic church on your street. Whether it's a building, infrastructure system, cultural or historical icon, or natural resource, if it's important to you, we want to incorporate it in our Resilient Nashua Initiative.
Please select three or more locations on the map that are important to you using the new "Community Resources" pin on coUrbanize. We look forward to seeing what resources are important to you!
Justin Kates recently sat down with Yvonne Dunetz on the Health View to discuss the Resilient Nashua Initiative and how citizens can engage with the project on CoUrbanize. The video provides a great overview of what we've done so far with the project.
To view the video, click here!
Last week stakeholders from the Resilient Nashua Initiative continued their work to identify and prioritize hazard mitigation actions around the community. Discussion ranged from green stormwater management techniques to finding ways to distribute more subsidized air conditioners throughout the community. The team will work to continue to prioritize the massive list of ideas to ensure the ones that make the most difference to reduce risk are included. Have an idea about a mitigation idea for our community? Reach out to us and let us know your thoughts at eoc@nashuanh.gov. Meeting minutes and presentation will be added to our website (www.livablenashua.org/resilient) shortly.
Our next meeting will be the Resilient Nashua Summit on December 18th. If you haven’t registered, please do so at https://bit.ly/ResilientNashuaSummit. We’re currently up over 80 registrations!
This week we'll be posting a new question on our map. Use the next few days to add any remaining hazards you've experienced in Nashua to the map before we change the topic.
The Resilient Nashua Initiative is looking for input from residents, businesses, and other community stakeholders in the development of recommendations and projects that promote community resilience across the City. Using the coUrbanize Platform, the Initiative will be identifying locations that could use improvements to reduce impacts due to the many shocks and stressors impacting our City.
We have locked in a new date and time for our November Resilient Nashua Initiative Meeting, November 19th 10am-12pm. During our October meeting we reviewed the summer activities that took place and also started a conversation around potential mitigation, adaptation, and resilience actions our community can take moving forward. Our next meeting in November will include a presentation from Ed Fratto of Northeast States Emergency Consortium (NESEC) on the results from the HAZUS analysis. We will have a conversation with the results to get a better idea of what would happen today if the 1938 Hurricane, 1936 Flood, or 1638 Earthquake occurred with our existing infrastructure and population. We will also continue identifying mitigation and adaptation actions and start the process of prioritizing them based on technical, political, environmental, and financial hurdles and opportunities.
Information on how to RSVP for the November 19th meeting is below. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me at katesj@nashuanh.gov.
Meeting Details:
When:
Monday, November 19th
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Location:
City Hall (City of Nashua)
Auditorium, 3rd Floor
229 Main Street
Nashua, NH 03060
Parking:
Parking for City Hall will be located in the Elm Street Garage, top floor only, for free. The garage is located at 92 Garden Street in Nashua.
The program will begin promptly at 10AM.
RSVP is required to ensure we have enough space. Please RSVP here: https://goo.gl/forms/2dXth0T1wsQAArHx2
After completing an RSVP, we will send you an Outlook calendar invite to lock the date in your calendar. If you are unable to attend, please feel free to have another representative for your organization RSVP as an alternate for your organization or community sector.
Registration is also open for the Resilient Nashua Summit to be held at Rivier University on December 18th (flyer attached). Breakfast and lunch will be included. Registration is free but required:https://bit.ly/ResilientNashuaSummit.
Thank you again for your continued participation and support of the Resilient Nashua Initiative and we look forward to seeing you in November & December.
