April 28, 29 FEMA Flood Map Discovery Meetings - Black & Ottauquechee Watershed Communities

FEMA’s Risk MAP Discovery Meeting Invitation for Black-Ottauquechee Watershed Communities

Good Afternoon,

This is a follow-up to my email sent February 19, 2021. I am writing on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to invite you to the upcoming FEMA Risk Mapping, Assessment, and Planning (Risk MAP) virtual Discovery Meetings scheduled for the Black-Ottauquechee Watershed communities in Vermont. CDM Smith, a member of the Compass JV, is a contractor scoped to support FEMA in the execution of this Risk MAP Discovery process for your community. Please read below for additional detail on how to attend the upcoming FEMA meetings.

The Discovery Meeting is part of the FEMA Risk MAP Discovery process currently underway in your community.  As noted in my prior email, the Discovery process commences at the beginning of a Risk MAP project and assists in identifying the scope of the future watershed study. Through the Discovery process, we will work with your community to collect data and information that will provide a more holistic picture of where vulnerabilities exist, the current flood hazards within your watershed, and opportunities to facilitate mitigation planning to help your community take further actions to reduce flood risk across the watershed.

The Discovery Meetings for this watershed will be held virtually using Microsoft Teams software platform.  We have scheduled two meeting dates for communities to attend which are shown below. 

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

Thursday, April 29, 2021

2:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT

Both meetings will cover the same information so please attend the one which is more convenient for you. For each date and time, we will send out calendar meeting invites for you to either accept or decline depending on your preference.

At the Discovery Meeting, we will review the flood risk data we have gathered. We will also discuss your community’s flooding history, flood risk concerns, and mitigation opportunities.  To support in meeting preparation, we are sharing with you the draft Discovery report and maps for your review. These products outline and display data that we have compiled to date for your community. These products also share draft information related to flood risk and potential future flood study priorities. You can download these draft products from the links in the attached table for your community.

We are asking that comments on these draft products, along with any additional data or information related to your community’s flood risk, be provided back to me no later than 30 days following the Discovery meeting.  Information collected from your community will be incorporated into the Discovery products following the Discovery meeting. Your feedback is important for identifying local needs for consideration. The information we collect will help FEMA prioritize and better define which areas within the watershed will receive restudy. Please consider providing any data to my email, rodriguezad at cdmsmith.com, via FEMA’s Floodmaps File eXchange (FFX) https://www.floodmaps.fema.gov/ffx/. Registering for a login account with user ID is free.

We are sending this email to those in your community who may be interested or involved with floodplain management. For purposes of future correspondence, please let us know if you should be removed or if there are additional, appropriate community officials and stakeholders who should be included. We encourage you and/or any other relevant floodplain management staff to attend this important meeting. The partnership and exchange of data between FEMA and your community will be vital to our success in identifying flood risks and needs that may exist.

If you have any questions regarding the Discovery process, the scheduled Discovery Meetings, or the draft products provided, or if you would like to submit additional information related to flood risk in your community, please contact me by e-mail at rodriguezad  at cdmsmith.com or by calling (312) 780-7710.  Also available to answer any questions is FEMA Project Manager, Christopher Markesich, by email at Christopher.Markesich at fema.dhs.gov or by phone at (617) 832-4712.

We look forward to working with your community through this Discovery process.