Natick has received funding through the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency to update its 5-year-old Hazard Mitigation Plan, and the town is seeking input through a public workshop and online survey. This plan helps the Town strategize to receive funding for projects that reduce the risk of injury or damage to property from natural hazard events such as flooding, winter storms, and hurricanes.
Natick will be working again with consultancy Horsley Witten Group, and there will be a Hazard Mitigation Planning Committee composed of town staff from Police, Fire, Public Works, Administration, Community and Economic Development, Public Health, and Sustainability.
Learn more about the plan and process at a public workshop on Wednesday, Dec. 13 from 6:30-8pm at Town Hall (3rd Floor, School Committee room). To participate remotely, connect via Zoom and use Meeting ID: 831 6587 1964 (Dial In: 1-309-205-3325).
“The purpose of the meeting on the 13th is to review the actions that have been completed by the Town to date and then get feedback from the community on whether those actions made a difference for them, and what issues are most important to them for inclusion in the upcoming plan,” says Claire Rundelli, Environmental Planner and Conservation Agent for Natick.
Share your ideas and concerns as well via a community survey. You’ll be asked questions about what mitigation steps you’ve taken or might take, and about what the government can do to address hazards. The survey will be open for at least a week after the public meeting.
The meeting and survey mark the start of the public engagement process around the updated plan.
Ready for this? Emotionally, neither are we. But we’ve got our snow-clearing service lined up. If you don’t, now’s the time to make a plan.
Backdoor view
Charles River freezing up overnight
Learn how sap drips into buckets from these sugar maple trees, tapped in the woods on DCR property adjacent to the road that loops around Elm Bank Reservation.
When the sap is running, farmers collect it from buckets hung from tapped sugar maple trees, then bring the sap to the farm’s sugar shack. There, it is boiled down to make the best maple syrup you’ve ever tasted.