SWAMPSCOTT — The Town is seeking community feedback on its Hazard Mitigation Plan, which will help Swampscott reduce its vulnerability to natural hazards such as flooding, hurricanes, and winter storms. It was drafted with the help of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC).
The project was funded by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) through a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant. FEMA’s approval of the plan will provide Swampscott with opportunities to receive funding for natural disasters or climate-related issues in the future.
Community and Economic Development Director Marzie Galazka noted that residents have until Oct. 17 to share their feedback on the plan, which will help shape the process going forward.
Senior Environmental Planner Martin Pillsbury explained the hazard plan’s background and how feedback from residents can help influence the process.
“The Town put together a plan with the assistance of the MAPC that has a lot of detail about natural hazards that can affect the town. Things like hurricanes, flooding, or even things that occur less frequently, like wildfires,” Pillsbury said.
Pillsbury continued, saying that data was gathered by both state agencies and a local team composed of Town officials.
“But we know there could be things that go on in a particular neighborhood or section of town that may not have shown up, and this is the opportunity for anyone who lives or works in the town that’s aware of any issues that may not have been covered,” he said.
He added, “We really want to make this plan as thorough as possible, and there’s a real chance for anyone who knows their town to chip in and suggest information that the team should be aware of.”
Pillsbury clarified that the plan is still in its drafting phase. Once the window for public feedback closes, the MAPC will take the data it received and make the appropriate changes to the draft, which will then be submitted to FEMA.
Pillsbury added that one of the most prominent elements of the plan is the way it addresses the threat that floods have on coastal towns like Swampscott.
“Swampscott faces two kinds of flooding because it’s a coastal community. There can be conditions that create flooding from ocean storms that inland communities don’t even have to think about… But then, on top of that, you have flooding that can come from rainfall events, so you have potential for flooding in both the inland parts of town, as well as around the coast,” he explained.
Pillsbury added that the team used local data to bring forward areas of Swampscott that have experienced flooding and are more at-risk than other areas throughout town.
Pillsbury cited Atlantic Avenue near the Marblehead town line, Shepard Avenue and Ocean Avenue, Puritan Road, King’s Beach and Stacey’s Brook, Stetson Avenue, and the area of the underpass on Burrill Street as some of the critical areas mentioned within the plan.
Fire Chief Graham Archer explained that while there’s not a “tremendous amount” of wooded area throughout Swampscott, as part of the Emergency Management Team, he helped identify several areas that could be potentially vulnerable to wildfires.
He cited an area adjacent to the Tedesco Country Club and the new elementary school, the wooded area near Fosters Pond, and the Harold A. King Town Forest as sites to be included in the hazard plan.
The plan also addressed the tracking of hurricanes and tropical storms and the potential impact they could have on the community. It was noted that only one tropical depression tracked directly through Swampscott back in 1902. However, storms that track nearby can go on to have regional impacts, and “a cluster of tracks offshore can cause storm surges.”
Pillsbury said that while Swampscott is not in what’s commonly referred to as “Tornado Alley” in the Midwest, there are still powerful storms that can hit Massachusetts, citing one that struck the Revere and Chelsea area roughly 10 years ago.
“It destroyed a few homes, and it was pretty significant. So we can get these tornadoes, and it’s very random where they land… Even a medium-sized tornado can do significant damage, so the plan covers all of those different hazards,” Pillsbury said. “It’s designed to cover every category and every type of hazard.
“And given where Swampscott is located, it’s more vulnerable to some kinds of hazards than others — clearly flooding and coastal flooding are the highest, most frequent hazards — and something like tornadoes aren’t very frequent, but also possible, so we think about those in the plans as well.”
Pillsbury also elaborated on the long-term and short-term rates of shoreline erosion trends that spanned from the 1840s to 2018. Long-term, starting from 1840, rated at 0.1 feet per year. However, the short-term, which spanned from 1970-2018, rated 0.9 feet per year.
“Swampscott does have a number of sandy beaches, and those are the places where erosion has occurred. We look into state-wide data and try to comb out parts that were relevant to Swampscott to figure out how much erosion has occurred,” he said.
He added, “The question was: Are the most recent decades of erosion different than when you look at it from a lens of the entire long-term record? And the answer is: It can be. It shows that the most recent records show a more accelerated rate of erosion.”
For anyone interested in looking at the hazard plan to give feedback, visit this link: swampscottma.gov/home/news/draft-hazard-mitigation-plan.
If any resident has feedback they would like to share with Pillsbury, he can be reached via email at [email protected].
