DUNCANSVILLE — A couple of times during state Sen. Judy Ward’s “water summit” Thursday, someone mentioned how dry much of the material was — without being obviously ironic.

Dry, but — given last year’s flooding in the borough and elsewhere in Blair County, coupled with the potential for flooding in the area anytime — important.

That importance was illustrated several days earlier when a municipal official called county Planning Director Dave McFarland and — not having heard what Ward had planned — asked for such a thing to be organized.

All McFarland had to do was advise his caller to show up Thursday.

“They’re here,” McFarland said, glancing across the room at the Community Center during a break in the three-hour event, which targeted local municipal officials and featured talks from local and state agency representatives on floodplains and the National Flood Insurance Program, stormwater management regulations, water-related permits, highway and bridge design in connection with streams, flood recovery tactics, how to get grants and loans to recover from floods and how to make a community flood resilient.

The approach by at least some of the presenters demonstrated a pleasing realization that the regulations they’re charged to enforce are being enforced upon neighbors, such that seeking compliance works better than punitive measures, said McFarland, citing the county Conservation District’s policy of allowing three “three strikes” before imposing penalties.

A fair share of Thursday’s presentations brought up typical complaints from municipalities and explained why the complainants are often left unsatisfied.

Why can’t streams be dredged, so water flows by harmlessly, people often ask, said PennDOT Assistant District 9 Executive for Design Vince Greenland.

That’s because making a channel wider and deeper slows the water, allowing for the depositing of more sediment, so the stream bed just fills back up again, Greenland said.

How can an area experience a 100-year flood, then another one the following year, people ask, Greenland said.

That’s because the 100-year designation just reflects a statistical probability — a 1 percent chance, Greenland said. One percent chances can come true any time, he explained.

The confusion over flood probabilities has led emergency management agencies to begin using the percentages, rather than the year-based designations, said Teddie Kreitz of Keller Engineers, who spoke about floodplains and the permitting connected with those.

The need for flood plain permits — which sometimes puzzle those who need to acquire them — becomes clear when floods occur and floatable materials like pipes for drilling move on to the nearest bridge, creating a dam that floods neighboring property, according to Kreitz.

In his previous job in the private sector, Altoona Public Works Director Nate Kissell, one of Thursday’s presenters, didn’t worry much about where he could put excess material from road cuts.

Now, as a member of the Intergovernmental Storm­water Committee, he’s become hyperaware of how such material can flow into nearby streams, adding to the sediment pollution the ISC is preparing to spend millions to reduce.

The work isn’t terribly complicated, Kissell said. “We just have to do it,” he stated.

When there’s flooding like what occurred in Duncans­ville twice last year, the best strategy is to work quickly to ask for disaster declarations and to assess damage, to ensure acquisition of maximum resources, said county Emergency Management Director Mark Taylor.

Those resources can include assistance for individuals, assistance for municipalities — neither of which is easy to obtain — and Small Business Admin­is­tra­tion loans, Taylor said.

Life safety, however, comes first, he said.

Also important is involvement by elected officials, projects to mitigate future hazards and promotion of flood insurance, he said.

There were people in the borough last year who regretted not having insurance, he said.

There are lots of programs that can offer monetary help, but it pays to know what you’re doing when you seek that help, said Joe Marsicano and Chris Yniguez, who work for the State Senate Caucus Services.

There are programs for grants, loans, tax credits and purchasing discounts, all of which demand some level of due diligence, according to Marsicano.

That diligence includes having a good plan, acquiring the best supporting data, reviewing the project with representatives of the funding agencies and legislative staffers and obtaining supporting documents from local officials and the community at large, Marsicano said.

The Department of Com­munity and Economic Development, the Depart­ment of Environ­mental Protection and the Depart­ment of Conservation and Natural Resources are among agencies that operate potentially helpful programs — although one of those, the Pennsylvania Small Water & Sewer Program, is flush out of funds, due to a flood of requests from last year, he said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.