Hinsdale Select Board reviews hazard mitigation update, draft due in April

HINSDALE — December 13, 2023 — Hinsdale Select Board hears presentation on required five-year hazard mitigation plan update, with a draft due in April 2024. Consultant Jamie Kaplan, a Northampton-based planner working on nearly a dozen similar plans statewide under a Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency contract, told the board that maintaining a FEMA-approved plan is the prerequisite for the town to apply for pre-disaster mitigation funding — and that every dollar spent on mitigation saves at least $6 in future disaster losses. Preliminary flood analysis already identifies 43 single-family homes in the town's flood plain, along with town hall, railroad tracks, and Route 8 as at-risk assets. Select Board member Bob Collins pressed for state agencies — citing the Department of Conservation and Recreation specifically — to take greater responsibility for hazards on state-owned land affecting neighboring properties, including recent first-floor flooding affecting seven homes near the Hinsdale Flats on the Washington town line. A second public meeting is scheduled for February, followed by a draft plan review in March before submission to MEMA.