Flooding response earns praise from Blair County commissioners

Updates to hazardous mitigation plan proved effective in handling recent emergency

HOLLIDAYSBURG -- Blair County commissioners, who on Thursday praised the county's emergency management staff and responders addressing recent flooding, also expressed relief about the efforts they made earlier this year to replace members of a planning commission allowing the county's outdated hazardous mitigation plan to lag.

Commissioners Chairman Dave Kessling and Amy Webster said Thursday that county residents with flood damage from July 5 and 6 storms are in a position to rely on state and federal resources because the county's hazardous mitigation plan has been updated.

The plan, as approved by commissioners at their June 10 meeting and by other municipal leaders at their meetings, took effect May 26 and replaced a plan that expired in February 2025.

Kessling and Webster, speaking of a meeting held Tuesday in Tyrone where victims of flooding could report and access

information about available resources, praised the county's emergency management staff for their efforts toward arranging that assistance.

"We would not have known how to go down to the people of Tyrone and say: 'We can't help you,'"

Kessling said as he spoke of what he feared commissioners would have faced for lack of an updated hazardous mitigation plan.

Webster, who recalled being criticized for asking Blair County Planning Commission members to resign, said the new members who joined the planning commission were able to move forward with getting the hazardous mitigation plan updated.

"If that had not happened, there would have been no help for those people," Webster said in reference to flood victims.

When asked if the state might have shown leniency to county residents in light of an emergency, Webster said she didn't think that would be the case.

"Not if the (county's) plan hasn't been updated since February 2025," Webster said.

The Blair County Planning Commission -- a governmental body formed in 1964 to address issues crossing municipal boundaries -- was reported to be working in 2024 on updates for the county's hazardous mitigation plan. But those efforts slowed down with staff changes and staff shortages, the commission's former Planning Director Dave McFarland told the Altoona Mirror in March. Then in 2025, McFarland acknowledged that his health issues and medical leave added to the delay.

Commissioners subsequently learned in 2025 that the Altoona Water Authority's pursuit of $500,000 in state and federal grants was on hold until the county's hazardous mitigation plan was updated.

In February, commissioners asked for and got resignations from planning commission members Herb Shelow, Jim Dixon and Nick Ardizonne. But in light of those resignations and vacant seats, the commissioners left the planning commission with only three members when it needed five to make a quorum.

Commissioners appointed replacement members, who voted on April 30 to accept McFarland's resignation and named commission Secretary Rodney Green to serve as an interim director. On June 25, the commission voted to hire Jessica Sheets to be its new planning director.

"I was happy to get the new commission in place," Webster said. "The prior members, they weren't taking the steps they needed to take."

Kessling and Webster also praised county emergency management personnel, law enforcement officers and others involved in managing last week's efforts associated with hosting the Union Pacific's Big Boy 4014 steam locomotive. The locomotive drew thousands of visitors to Altoona and Blair County before rounding the Horseshoe Curve on Saturday during its departure.

"It was great to see a county come together and work together on one cause," Kessling said.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.