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With the exception of coastal erosion, levee failures and nuclear incidents nearly everything in the state's 1,000-page draft hazard plan applies to Blair County.
The Blair County Hazard Mitigation Committee on Monday came to a tentative consensus on what to include in its next mitigation plan, which is slated to be approved in 2025.
The committee, led by chairman and Blair Planning Director Dave McFarland, launched its update of the 2020 plan in June, when it laid out a work schedule for the update, which occurs every five years.
Among hazards to which the county is susceptible: floods, drought, wind, winter storms, utility interruptions, substance use disorder, invasive species, transportation incidents, hazardous materials releases, cyberterrorism, radon and urban fires and explosions.
Flooding is "a no-brainer," McFarland said.
Drought is mainly a foe of agriculture, although it's a much greater threat recently in the western U.S., McFarland said.
There were memorable winter storms here in the 1990s and early 2000s, although the recent average has been only two "plowable" events per winter, he said. More common now are wintry mixes.
Utility interruptions happen frequently, when vehicles crash into utility poles, lightning strikes a substation or ice breaks tree branches that short out power lines.
Substance use has become a plague of society almost everywhere.
Invasive species that have come to Blair County include bushes that now make it nearly impossible to get to some sections of riverbank, McFarland said. Invasive insects include the spotted lanternfly and emerald ash borer.
There have been instances of cyberterrorism locally, with ransomware attacks on schools, said committee member and Blair County Emergency Management Director Mark Taylor.
Transportation incidents seemed to be another no-brainer, given the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on the same mainline that runs through Altoona.
Including urban fire and explosion reflects the memory of the fatal natural gas explosion in Tyrone in July 2021.
Other relevant hazards include extreme temperatures, pandemics, earthquakes, hail, landslides, lightning, sinkholes, wildfires, building collapses, dam failures, food contamination, issues related to pipelines and wells for fossil fuels, plus civil disturbances.
Extreme heat made national headlines all summer, although it's been a while since the temperature reached 100 degrees here -- or went below 0, according to McFarland.
The region's experience with COVID-19 made it easy to include pandemics.
Earthquakes are rare, but Morrisons Cove in the 1800s had the largest such event in the history of Pennsylvania, McFarland said.
Hail damaged small-grain crops in Sinking Valley this summer, according to committee member Donna Fisher, manager of the Blair County Conservation District.
There probably haven't been any local landslides, but there have been rock-falls -- including those that led PennDOT to install Jersey barriers along the eastbound embankment of Route 22, just east of Hollidaysburg, McFarland said.
While not talked about much, radon is a major hazard, lurking in the soil under the foundations of some houses, McFarland said. "We're one of the highest ranked counties in one of the highest-ranked states for radon," he said. Still, its presence tends to be spotty, as one house can have it and the house next door may not, he said. Blair Planning has radon test kits available.
Wildfires are a risk especially at the "urban-forest interface" areas, like the one at the "toe" of Brush Mountain in Frankstown Township, McFarland said.
The committee will flesh out the local relevance of the hazards that have been identified, as required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The inclusion of a hazard makes it easier to obtain disaster funding if that hazard is the occasion of a disaster, McFarland said.
At some point, the committee will vote formally on which hazards to include.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.