Tag: Stacy Ludington

Meet CPW Student: Stacy Ludington

Posted on by Julia Havens

Where were you born and where do you call home?Community Planning Workshop Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience CPW OPDR Stacy Ludington
I was born in Greensboro, NC but didn’t live there long. I call Eugene my west coast home, but Blacksburg, VA my hometown. “Hometown” is a bit of a stretch though, considering I attended 16 different schools before 9th grade. That’s my fun fact about myself.

What’s your favorite pig-out food?
I LOVE the fries from Falling Sky, a brewery restaurant that is located way too close to my house for my cholesterol health. I’m also guilty of occasionally eating ice cream for breakfast.

In which graduate program are you enrolled?
I’m working towards my Master of Community and Regional Planning and focusing on the mitigation of natural disasters, particularly those related to climate change. I’m also finding a strong interest in identifying ways organizations can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions though conducting GHG Inventories and life cycle assessments.

What Community Service Center program(s) are you working with?
Up till now, I’ve worked with the Community Planning Workshop, which has been the best experience of my program thus far. My CPW project, which I continued into the summer, was for the Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience (OPDR). The Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience (OPDR) is an applied research program working toward the mission of creating a disaster resilient and sustainable state.

What are you doing for the Community Service Center (CSC)?
I worked on a team that updated the Jefferson County Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan (NHMP), which forms the foundation for a county or city’s long-term strategy to reduce disaster losses and break the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage through hazard mitigation. Hazard mitigation is any sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people, property and the local economy. NHMPs must be updated every five years in order to stay compliant with FEMA requirements. Over the summer I developed a final draft of the Jefferson County Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan (NHMP), which was pre-approved by FEMA on December 10th of 2013 and is now awaiting city and county adoption. Currently I’m assisting with the update of the Oregon NHMP and will soon be involved with the creation of a NHMP update training series for local officials.

How does your involvement with the Community Service Center relate to or inform your education?
My work on this project introduced me to the field of planning for natural disasters, which greatly interests me, partially how it relates to climate-related natural disasters that can affect planning such as sea level rise.

What did you get for your birthday?
My dad sent me a new hiking pack filled with everything I could possibly need to track down and find Big Foot. It’s been a running joke that instead of moving to Oregon for school, I was really on a journey of self-discovery, which involved finding Sasquatch.

Where can we ‘cyber-stalk’ you?
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stacyludington

 

Developing a deep fascination of a NHMP

Posted on by Julia Havens

Stacy Ludington Jefferson County Community Planning Workshop University of Oregon When the projects were reveled for the 2013 Community Planning Workshop (CPW), I saw that there was one to update a Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan (NHMP). I didn’t know what an NHMP was, but I have always had a deep fascination for the power of nature. I am the kind of person who goes onto the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) earthquake page for fun, and who looks up maps of past lahar flows and 100 year floodplains to make sure the house I’m about to rent isn’t located in dangers way. I jumped at the NHMP opportunity!

I quickly learned that an NHMP is a plan that FEMA requires communities to update every five-years in order to remain eligible for federal mitigation funds. I also learned that mitigation is any action that can reduce the impact of natural hazards on a community. NHMPs look at a community’s level of vulnerability to natural hazards (for example: though looking at those floodplain maps I strangely enjoy so much), and probability of a hazard occurring. Knowing a community’s vulnerability and probability to a natural hazard gives us the level of risk a particular hazard poses. This knowledge is then used to develop mitigation action items to reduce the impact of hazards on the community. This can include anything from education to removing dead tree branches around power lines.

Our CPW project was to update the NHMP for Jefferson County in eastern Oregon (another reason I chose this project: to see some sunshine during the Oregon winter). A steering committee was assembled for the CPW team composing of people from community development, Fire and Rescue, community volunteers, and many more. They were extremely knowledgeable about the hazards their community had faced and were no strangers to hazard mitigation. Because of their past NHMP, they had received funding to move their city hall out of the floodplain. It was our job to update the document so they would still be eligible for additional projects.

The CPW team held a total of four county wide meetings to discuss the role of the steering committee, assess the risk that the county faces, develop action items, and discuss implementation and upkeep of the plan. We also held separate meetings with the cities of Madras and Metolius to develop action items specific to their community needs. My role extended to a summer internship with the Community Service Center where I continued working on the NHMP with Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience (OPDR). The NHMP was submitted to FEMA this past October with approval of the plan earlier this month (December). This project was really enjoyable for me and I learned a great deal about the NHMP process, what makes a good plan, and about working steering committees.

Community Planning Workshop Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience CPW OPDR Stacy Ludington

Stacy Ludington is a second year Master of Community and Regional Planning student at the University of Oregon, who plans to graduate in June of 2014. She is focusing on how the impacts of climate change affects how we plan communities, particularly climate related natural disasters. Originally from the east coast, she’s loving all that Oregon has to offer and plans to stay on the “left” coast after graduation.