County Executive McMahon Invites Onondaga County Residents to Participate in Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan Update
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Onondaga County Department of Planning invites residents, businesses, community organizations, and stakeholders to review and provide feedback on the 2025 Draft Update of the Onondaga County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan.
The countywide Hazard Mitigation Plan forms the foundation of a countywide strategy to reduce natural disaster losses and break the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repetitive damage. In addition to minimizing risks to the population, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) cites that every $1 spent on hazard mitigation before a natural hazard occurs saves $6 on future disaster losses after the fact.
The Plan assesses risks the County faces from 10 identified natural hazards and outlines strategies the County, municipalities (i.e., cities, towns, and villages) and special districts have identified for reducing the impact of these hazards. The Onondaga County Department of Planning has led the planning effort on behalf of, and with participation from, each of the County’s 19 towns, 15 villages, the City of Syracuse, Onondaga County government, and the Onondaga County Water Authority (OCWA). Each jurisdiction will adopt the plan upon completion.
The plan was originally adopted by the Onondaga County Legislature and participating jurisdictions in
2013 and updated in 2019. The United States government requires local and state governments to have a NYS and FEMA-approved Hazard Mitigation Plan in order to qualify for hazard mitigation assistance grant dollars. These programs are critical sources of Federal funding, especially for a community that aims to proactively initiate mitigation projects using mitigation grant dollars.
Unique to the 2019 plan is also a special partnership with AT&T, who as part of their Climate Resilient
Communities Initiative, provided no-cost technical assistance to the County’s hazard assessment efforts. Utilizing the expertise at the Center of Excellence for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning at Colorado State University, AT&T and Onondaga County were able to leverage insights from the Climate Risk and Resilience Portal (ClimRR, https://climrr.anl.gov/). This ClimRR technical assistance
enabled the team to look at simulated future climate conditions at mid- and end-of-century for a range of climate risks and provides future climate data projections to help communities plan for and adapt to our changing weather.
Onondaga County is currently seeking stakeholder and public comment on the draft 2025 Onondaga
County Hazard Mitigation Plan Update. The Plan is comprised of Volume 1, which includes the countywide planning elements, and 36 annexes – one (1) for each of the plan participants mentioned
above.
Interested residents, businesses, community organizations, and stakeholders can review and provide
feedback on the Plan and its annexes before it is submitted to the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services and FEMA for review. The Plan is accessible via the Onondaga County Hazard Mitigation Plan website and comments are encouraged using the following online form: s.alchemer.com/s3/OnondagaCountyHMPCommentForm.
The deadline to submit feedback is May 30th, 2025.
The Onondaga County Department of Planning provides a variety of planning services for Onondaga
County. Our mission is to provide and promote effective planning by Onondaga County, the City of
Syracuse and the 19 towns and 15 villages in Onondaga County. To learn more, visit ongov.net/planning
or call (315) 435-2611.