_{Thumbnail photo: H Dock in the Crescent City Harbor’s marina bore the brunt of the damage from Kamchatka tsunami on July 29 and July 30, 2025. Tsunamis were among the potential risks Crescent City and other parts of Del Norte County face, according to its the most recent countywide Local Hazard Mitigation Plan. | Photo courtesy of Mike Rademaker}

Del Norte County supervisors on Tuesday adopted an updated plan that seeks to reduce risk to life and property from natural disasters and other hazards.

The five-year two-volume countywide Local Hazard Mitigation Plan identifies the community’s risk from wildfires, tsunamis, earthquakes and other disasters, said Sasha Jones, a senior resilience and climate adaptation planner with Tetra Tech. 

The plan is a product of more than two years of public outreach, meetings, surveys and collaboration with other jurisdictions that must also adopt the plan, Jones told supervisors.

“There are about six grant programs where FEMA provides funding for mitigation projects,” she said. “And you are only eligible to apply if you have a hazard mitigation plan in place.”

The Del Norte County Office of Emergency Services hired Tetra Tech, a global engineering firm, to assist the community in drafting the plan. According to Jones, the process began in July 2024. Jurisdictions participating in the plan besides the county include Crescent City, Elk Valley Rancheria, Crescent Fire Protection District, the Smith River Fire Protection District and the Gasquet, Klamath, HRC and Smith River community service districts.

Del Norte Unified School District, the Del Norte Local Transportation Commission, tribal nations and nonprofit organizations like the American Red Cross were also involved in a steering committee that ranked the hazards the county is vulnerable to.

“We’ve held two public meetings in this room,” Jones said. “We’ve had three meetings of that mitigation working group and those were all open to the public as well. We had a public hazardous mitigation survey open for about three to four months and we received 196 responses. There were postings on the website, we printed posters and posted them all over the county. It was everywhere — all over Crescent City, Gasquet, Smith River and Klamath.”

The final step is adopting the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, which the Board of Supervisors unanimously did on Tuesday. The Klamath Community Services District has also adopted the plan, Jones said.

“Each of the participating districts will adopt the plan,” she said. “And once the plan is adopted, those adoption resolutions are sent to CalOES and FEMA who have already reviewed and approved the plan and you will then be eligible to apply for FEMA Hazardous Mitigation Assistance grants.”

In addition to assessing the community’s risk, the hazard mitigation plan seeks to formulate a strategy — a list of projects — the county and other participating jurisdictions will implement over the next five years.

The primary goal is to reduce the risk to life and property that those hazards pose, Jones said. This includes ensuring community lifelines such as utilities, access to water, hazardous materials containment and other processes are protected.

Safeguarding the local economy is also one of the plan’s goals, Jones said, as is ensuring every community member is aware of what they can do to reduce their own risk from hazards such as tsunamis, earthquakes and wildfires.

According to the report Tetra Tech completed, the most recent Local Hazard Mitigation Plan was completed in 2019. It included climate change as a standalone hazard, Jones said, but this year climate change factors into most of the other dangers the plan identifies. She noted that while there’s little evidence to suggest that climate change has an impact on earthquakes, it does exacerbate wildfires, drought and extreme heat.

Also new in the 2026 plan is a mention of extreme heat. This inclusion was the result of California Assembly Bill 2684, though according to the plan’s executive summary, the hazard ranking was low in most cases.

In Crescent City and unincorporated Del Norte County, tsunamis were among the hazards with the highest ranking. Tsunamis ranked high for the Klamath Community Services District as well.

Wildfire was also ranked high among the hazards most jurisdictions in Del Norte County are vulnerable to, according to the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan’s executive summary.

Over the next five years, the Del Norte Office of Emergency Services will meet with each of the participating jurisdictions annually to monitor the plan’s progress.

“They’re going to be looking for what works in the plan and what we can change next time — because it will need to be updated again in five years to remain eligible for those FEMA grants,” Jones said. “We’re especially looking at capturing best practices and lessons learned.”

To view the two-volume plan, click here and here.