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2024 Program To Be Released Soon!

2023 Conference Program

2023 Conference Keynotes and General Sessions:

 

Commonwealth of Virginia Flood Resilience Updates

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 8:30-9:45 am 

 

Matthew Wells became DCR director in March 21, 2022. He has a background that brings together policy, politics and advocacy, with over two decades of experience in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Immediately before joining DCR, he was Senior Regional Manager for State Government Relations for WestRock, a global leader in sustainable fiber-based packaging solutions, where he oversaw the company’s legislative interests in environmental stewardship and sustainability, forestry, economic development and other issues across multiple states.

 

Speaker: Matthew Wells

Director | Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation

 

Substantial Damage Planning & ASFPM's Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) Program

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 12:00-1:30 am 

 

Paul “Oz” Osman, a longtime floodplains program manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources who is now retired. He has served ASFPM in a variety of functions over the past three decades. Paul was elected as regional director on the ASFPM Board and served much of the 1990s and 2000s, a passionate advocate for common-sense floodplain management at the state and local levels.

 

Speaker: Paul Osman, CFM

Owner | P. Oz Consulting, LLC

 

Reviewing FEMA's New 2023 Elevation Certificate

Session date & time: Tuesday, November 14 | 8:30-10:00 am 

 

During this workshop, attendees will be introduced to the new FEMA Elevation Certificate (EC) form, released on July 7, 2023. This workshop will cover all sections of the EC, building diagrams, and highlight changes to the new form, including the expanded flood openings section and newly added Sections H and I. Attendees will learn about the additional EC requirements for communities participating in the Community Rating System program. The new Elevation Certificate must be used for all submittals dated November 1, 2023 or later.

 

Speaker: Kristin Owen, AICP, CFM

Floodplain & Dam Safety Manager | Henrico County

 

Kristin Owen is the Floodplain & Dam Safety Manager for Henrico County, Virginia and the current president of the Virginia Floodplain Management Association. Kristin has extensive state and local government experience in floodplain management and land use planning. Prior to joining Henrico County, Kristin worked for the Commonwealth of Virginia as the Acting NFIP Coordinator, State CRS Coordinator, and co-chair of the Virginia Silver Jackets team. While in this role, she assisted Governor Northam’s Office with developing and implementing two executive orders aimed to reduce flood risk and increase Virginia’s resiliency to natural hazards. She also partnered with Virginia Tech to create and teach a graduate-level course on local floodplain management, which earned her FEMA’s 2019 Best Innovation/Project Award. Before joining the Commonwealth of Virginia, Kristin was the Planning and Floodplain Administrator for Teton County, Idaho. Kristin received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from West Virginia University, and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning, a Master of Natural Resources, and Graduate Certificates in Watershed Management and Geospatial Information Technology from Virginia Tech. She is an AICP professional planner and a Certified Floodplain Manager.  

 

Larry Larson Speaker Series, in partnership with the ASFPM Foundation: Economic Development & Floodplain Management: Addressing the Growth Paradigm

Session date & time: Tuesday, November 14 | 12:00-2:00 pm 

 

Panelists:

 

Matthew Langley, CFM

Floodplain Administrator | Cedar Rapids, IA

 

Kate Vogel

Coastal Resilience Planner | Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources

Mary-Carson S. Stiff

Executive Director | Wetlands Watch

Kate Vogel

Coastal Resilience Planner | Chesapeake & Coastal Service, Department of Natural Resources

 

Anna A. Weber

Senior Policy Analyst | Climate Adaptation Team, Natural Resources Defense Council 

 

Thomas Ruppert, Esq.

Asst. Provost for Coastal Resilience/Director of the Virginia Coastal Resilience Collaborative

William & Mary

Breakout Session Details:

Monday, November 13

"Kmart vs. Kroger et al."

 

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 9:50-10:35 am 

 

"In May 2010, a major rainfall event caused flooding in Corinth, Mississippi and the surrounding region. Significant damage to both residences and businesses resulted from this flood event.  The Fulton Crossing Shopping Center, where Kmart and Kroger stores were both located, sustained major damage.   On the 1-year anniversary of the storm, Kmart sued Kroger and seven other defendants in U.S. District Court.  In brief, the suit alleged that Kroger’s presence in the floodway of Elam Creek directly led to the damages incurred by Kmart.  I was invited to serve as a subject matter expert for 3 of the defendants in the case.  Certain technical aspects arose from the various arguments posed by Kmart, including rainfall measurement, Letter of Map Revision, and HEC-RAS modeling.  These aspects will be discussed and illustrated in the presentation.  Lessons learned from the perspective of a local floodplain administrator, who was impacted by the lawsuit, will also be highlighted."

 

Speaker: Jamie Monohan, PE, CFM

 

Jamie Monohan is a project engineer with Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson, Inc. in Richmond, Virginia.  He has worked in the field of water resources engineering and planning for 27 years.  He is a graduate of University of Virginia and returned to the Commonwealth in 2021 after living in Mississippi for 16 years, with most of that time spent working on FEMA flood mapping projects.

 

"Meeting the Challenges of Dam Safety in your Community"

 

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 9:50-10:35 am 

 

Recently, the DCR Dam Safety Division has been sending letters to public and private dam owners statewide, letting them know that their dams are not meeting state regulations.  In many communities this has resulted in more than 50% of the known dams being classified as unknown hazard class putting them out of compliance with state regulations. With many of these being private dams, there are often questions about who owns the dam, who owns the land the dam is on, and how resources can be secured to start working towards regulatory compliance.  Even with public dams, the requirements can be very challenging.  This presentation will provide some steps towards having a safer community by tackling dam safety and partnering with private dam owners in your community.  It will present thoughts about municipal agencies leveraging the benefits to public safety and water quality to partner with a private civic association to make repairs to their dam and improve the associated lake for the benefits to the neighborhood, downstream property owners, and the broader community.  Dam safety projects also involve wetland impacts, resource protection area and floodplain permits, and other permitting challenges related to water borne structures, and in some cases, state grant funding assistance. Through a broader discussion about public safety we hope to provide insights on how to tackle the dam safety challenges in your community with time for answering questions about the public and private dam concerns you might be facing at this time.

 

Speaker: Don Rissmeyer, PE, CFM

 

Don Rissmeyer is a licensed professional engineer in six states and Washington DC, as well as a Certified Floodplain Manager. He has over 30 years of experience in providing consulting engineering services to governmental clients at the local, state and federal level. He currently helps manage the Environmental and Water Resources Division for A. Morton Thomas and Associates where he has worked for 18 years. He is also a Past-President of the ASCE Virginia Section and the Virginia Floodplain Management Association (VFMA).

 

Mr. Rissmeyer also served on the 2014 DDOT Green Infrastructure Standards Development Team, and is currently serving on the ASCE National Committee for Permeable Interlocking Concrete Pavement (PICP), who is developing a national standards manual for design, construction and maintenance of PICP permeable pavement systems. He is also a Past President of the Richmond Branch and Virginia Section of ASCE.

 

"Data-driven Resident Flood Communication & Outreach"

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 11:05-11:50am 

 

Resident communication and outreach are fundamental aspects of floodplain management. If done successfully, they can have cascading positive effects. Providing community members with actionable flood risk information can empower them to take individual action to mitigate and adapt, resulting in fewer compliance issues over time. More-informed residents can also mean a safer community overall, with open lines of communication helping to strengthen government trust. While effective communication is crucial, making it a priority can be difficult in communities where floodplain managers have competing important tasks and not enough time. Compounding this is the need for clarity and specificity – in communities with high rates of development, residents often seek detailed information about individual properties. It can be hard to provide nuanced data to a large public and even harder to keep track of that communication for internal recordkeeping or programs like the CRS. Using the case study of Forerunner’s work with a partner community, this session will outline how the community combines technology with robust outreach strategies to boost resident communication. We’ll discuss how software like Forerunner can help communities pull together disparate datasets and mobilize information for property-specific outreach to provide smarter resources to a variety of stakeholders. We’ll explore how incorporating digital workflows into outreach can ensure faster response time, better compliance enforcement, and stronger data continuity. The presentation will also include suggestions on how other communities might be able to leverage data to strengthen their floodplain management programs.

 

Speaker: Owen MacNeill

 

Owen MacNeill is an Account Executive at Forerunner. He is a New Jersey native who is passionate about coastal and climate resilience and has brought that passion to the communities he works with alongside Forerunner. Before joining Forerunner, he worked in the enterprise automation space where he sold software to the Fortune 500. Now, he focuses on partnering with government agencies across the United States to improve their floodplain management processes and better inform the public of their flood risk. 

 

"CRS Introduction”

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 11:05-11:50am 

 

Speaker: Emily Schmidt, CFM

 

“National Flood Insurance Program Compliance and Community Assistance Visits”

 Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 1:30-2:15pm 

 

Is your community prepared for a Community Assistance Visit?  Participation in the National Flood Insurance Program is an agreement between the participating communities and FEMA.  NFIP participating communities agree to adopt FEMAs regulations in a local flood damage prevention ordinance and enforce it.  In return FEMA provides flood insurance, federally backed mortgages and loans, and disaster assistance.  Community Assistance Contacts and Visits are FEMAs way of ensuring compliance with these regulations.  It is also an opportunity for FEMA to help improve a community’s floodplain management programs and in turn become more resistant to flooding.  In this session we will review the National Flood Insurance Program regulations and what it means to be in compliance with them.  We will also go over the process for a Community Assistance Visit, what information FEMA will be looking for, and some common compliance issues that have been seen in the field.

 

Speaker: Kenya Lovill, CFM

 

Kenya Lovill, CFM, graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering from Drexel University in 2015.  Currently, Kenya works at FEMA Region 3 in the Floodplain Management and Insurance Branch as the State Support Specialist for the State of Virginia.  In this role, she provides technical assistance and training to the State of Virginia and its NFIP participating communities.  Prior to starting at FEMA, Kenya worked for the New Jersey National Flood Insurance Program Coordinator’s office.  Earlier in her career, Kenya worked at the New York City Parks Department and the Philadelphia Water Department as a Green Infrastructure Engineer. 


 

"Modeling and Analyzing a Pier as an Abutment for Scour Analysis – Is it Appropriate and When?"

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 1:30-2:15pm 

 

Scour Analyses are critical components of bridge design.  Hydrodynamic scour occurs within flowing water with high velocity, which can carve out scour holes that compromise the integrity of a structure.  Furthermore, flood events introduce increased quantities of water at higher velocities and depths than normal conditions.  Estimating the size and depth of these scour holes during major flood events is essential for risk management and ultimately the safety of drivers and pedestrians using the bridge.  The theoretical scour depths and elevations are then used to determine the elevation to which bridge foundations are installed.

 

Developing accurate and dependable scour estimations can save lives, but it can also be expensive to drive piles deeper to account for scour.  It is prudent for the engineering team to design bridge foundations assuming no ground support (lateral or vertical) due to soil loss from long-term degradation, stream instability, and contraction scour.  Overestimation of scour depths can increase the cost of bridge infrastructure, but underestimation of scour depths can lead to bridge failure and possibly loss of life.  Though it is important to design to the most cost-effective parameters, ensuring the safety of the community is of utmost importance.

 

A major difference between scour at abutments vs scour at piers is that abutments are impacted by effective flow on one side (from a cross sectional point of view), whereas piers are impacted by effective flow on both sides.  So, what if there is a situation with a pier that is only impacted by effective flow on one side?  Are such piers bound to the pier scour equations?  Are the pier scour equations more conservative than the abutment scour equations in such a situation?

 

This presentation investigates these questions and relates them to an analysis of a stream with a proposed double-span bridge that has a pedestrian underpass separated from the principal hydraulic opening by a continuous wall pier.  The pedestrian underpass is elevated above the channel and overbanks, and the wall pier prevents effective flow through the principal hydraulic opening from entering the span with the underpass.  Therefore, the flow dynamics at the pier are similar to what is typically seen at an abutment.  This presentation discusses this scenario and compares models and scour results of a double-span bridge situation (with a pier) vs a single-span bridge situation (pier modeled as an abutment).  1D HEC-RAS models were used to evaluate scour estimates for both situations according to the procedures and guidelines presented in Hydraulic Engineering Circular No. 18 (HEC-18), Fifth Edition.  Additionally, a 2D HEC-RAS model of the double-span situation was developed to show the flow interaction and velocities around the pier more accurately.

 

Results of the 1D models yield greater velocity through the bridge when the pier is modeled as an abutment (single-span) rather a pier (double-span).  This directly leads to increased contraction scour depth estimates.  Results of the 2D model yield relatively shallow depths and low velocity through the pedestrian underpass.

 

Speaker: William J. Leonetti, PE, CFM

 

William Leonetti is a Project Engineer for Rummel, Klepper & Kahl (RK&K) and has over 10 years of professional experience.  He is certified in VA, MD, and DC as a Professional Engineer (PE) and is as a Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM).  He received both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Civil Engineering from West Virginia University in 2013 and 2014, respectively.  William is co-author of the published Watershed Based Plan for Little Tenmile Creek (HUC-8 #05020002) and co-author of another Watershed Based Plan that is in press – for Lick Run of the Cheat River.  Will’s professional focus has been on water resources, mainly hydrology and hydraulics, storm water management conveyance and design, and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

 

 "Virginia Beach CAV"

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 2:20-3:05pm 

 

Speaker: Whitney McNamara, CFM

Whitney is a Certified Floodplain Manager and Environmental Planner with Virginia Beach, VA, and currently serves as the City’s Floodplain Administrator and CRS Coordinator. She has spent the past 10 years working to overhaul and update the City’s Floodplain Management Program and integrate floodplain review throughout the development process. During her time with Virginia Beach she has addressed compliance issues in a 2012 CAV, revamped the City’s Floodplain Ordinance, and was instrumental in the City’s entry into the Community Rating System as a Class 7 Community. She holds a Master of Environmental Management degree from Duke University and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Marine Biology with a Minor in Environmental Studies from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

 

"Hybrid Solutions for DOT applications for Proactive Road Flooding Alerts"

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 2:20-3:05pm 

 

 As water managers and engineers, it’s important to understand our watersheds, the urban landscapes, and their response to extreme events like heavy precipitation and rising surface water levels. These events can impact property, municipal infrastructure, and water quality.  Of the numerous tools at our disposal, there are many benefits to continuous water monitoring systems, including knowing in time where flooding issues could occur, enabling proactive action.

 

Speaker: Chuck Kozora

 

At OTT HydroMet, Chuck Kozora manages the states of OH, PA, WV, and VA, by offering service, support, and solutions for hydrology and meteorology monitoring applications. Prior to OTT HydroMet, Chuck focused on water treatment for the municipal and energy sectors. Chuck holds a Master of Science degree in Chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Penn State University. In his spare time, he enjoys photographing, cycling, hiking, and backpacking.

 

"Virginia’s Flood Resilience Plans "

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 3:20-4:05pm 

 

The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation is charged with developing, administering, and implementing the Virginia Flood Protection Master Plan and the Coastal Resilience Master Plan. These state-led plans, managed by DCR’s Office of Resilience Planning, represent a coordinated interagency and intergovernmental strategy to address flood risks that impact all Virginians. The plans, informed by localities and other stakeholders, complement and inform community-led flood resilience plans and decision making. Together Virginia is building an integrated network of resilience plans operating at multiple scales of governance to minimize loss of life, property damage, and negative impacts on the environment.  Virginia is scheduled to prepare the Virginia Flood Protection Master Plan by December 2025, and the Coastal Resilience Master Plan Phase II by December 2024.  During this session, DCR will share its strategy, approach, and progress toward advancing both planning efforts. The presentation will also feature the recently released Coastal Resilience Web Explorer User Portal, a collaborative living database of coastal resilience actions.

 

Speaker: Matt Dalon

Matt Dalon is the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Office of Resilience Planning, Program Manager.  The Office of Resilience Planning is charged with developing and implementing The Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan and The Virginia Flood Protection Master Plan to minimize the impacts to minimize loss of life, property damage, and negative impacts on the environment resulting from flooding.  After 14 years in the private sector providing holistic waterfront solutions, Matt joined DCR in 2021.  He is a Professional Engineer, Certified Floodplain Manager, and has a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University and a Master’s Degree in Ocean & Coastal Engineering from Oregon State University.


 

Norfolk CSRM: Working WITH the Army Corps of Engineers

 

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 3:20-4:05pm 

 

The City of Norfolk has an awesome opportunity to get infrastructure built that will minimize the impacts to storm surge in the city, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is at the forefront of this opportunity. With a 65%/35% funding split between USACE and the City of Norfolk, this is a team effort to get this work done – One the City is happy and proud to be a part. In our presentation, we will share what we have learned about processes that must be followed when sharing a project with USACE. We will also share the challenges and the opportunities in this teaming arrangement. We value the teaming relationship we have with USACE, so our presentation’s purpose is not to sway anyone from following in our footsteps, but instead give you the tools to be prepared and successful.

 

Speakers:

 

Christene Mitchell, PE, ENV SP

Matthew Simons, AICP, CFM 

 

As Deputy Resilience Officer for the City of Norfolk, Matt Simons is a key leader for the Norfolk Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) program. Matt provides technical and policy guidance for funding, design and construction of the CSRM program – A program that includes integrating structural solutions, such as floodwalls, levees and pump stations; natural and nature-based solutions, such as living shorelines; and nonstructural solutions for individual residents, such as basement fills and elevating homes. The goal of the program is to produce resilient layers of defense for Norfolk, Virginia in a manner that protects the unique character of the city. Matt has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Economics from Old Dominion University, a Post-graduate in Urban Design from the University of the West of England, and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning, Urban Revitalization from Virginia Commonwealth University. As a father of three with one being less than a year old, his current activity outside of work is being at home helping his wife take care of their beautiful family.

 

Christene Mitchell is an Associate Vice President at AECOM, and she focuses on providing colleagues and clients management support. She is a leader / co-leader for many initiatives, both within and outside, of AECOM, including for the Norfolk Coastal Storm Risk Management Program and the City of Richmond's Combined Sewer Overflow Program. Christene has experience as a manager in both the public and private sectors, which provides her a unique perspective to lead initiatives. Christene has a Bachelor of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Old Dominion University and a Master of Engineering in Engineering Management from Duke University. She is also a Professional Engineer in Virginia and North Carolina. Christene came into this profession because of her love of water, so when she is not at one of her son’s soccer, baseball or basketball games, you will find her near or on the water.

 

Resilience in Water Resources: Concepts to Applications

 

Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 4:10-4:55pm 

 

The term resilience is used to address a wide range of issues related to water resources from environmental conservation to infrastructure management and planning policy development. In this session we’ll explore how we’ve taken our resilience framework and applied it in the real-world. Implementation of both in small- and large-scale efforts in that include technical engineering, planning, policy support, partnering and engagement all contribute to increasing resilience in communities we’ve worked with across the nation.

 

Speakers: 

 

John Hoffman, PMP

Necolle Maccherone, CFM

 

John Hoffman has 28 years of experience in operations management, financial management, and management of large-multidisciplinary technical resources related to water resources, community and disaster resilience services.  His expertise is in developing resource management systems to successfully deliver large portfolios of technical services spanning Federal, municipal and private clients.  As a Senior Technical Manager at AtkinsRealis, John is responsible for resource management for a multi-disciplinary group of water resource engineers, GIS and Resilience specialists for FEMA PTS, CTP clients as well as state and municipal agencies.  John obtained his CFM in 2003 and has supported several state chapters as well as the ASFPM Foundation efforts and is currently a member of VFMA.

 

Necolle has worked to increase community flood resilience through sound floodplain and stormwater management in her professional and volunteer work for many years. As a project manager for Atkins, she supports national policy and program efforts within FEMA’s Risk MAP Program related to flood hazard mapping and community engagement. She has also worked on local mitigation planning and climate vulnerability assessment efforts in Maryland.  Necolle is the immediate past Chair of the Maryland Association of Floodplain and Stormwater Managers (MAFSM) and a former Board member of the Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM).


 

"Coastal Storm Risk Management Study 101 for Local Governments"

 Session date & time: Monday, November 13 | 4:10-4:55pm 

 

Speakers:

Grace Tucker

Emily Steinhilber


 

At EDF, Grace works to build and maintain collaborative partnerships with diverse local, regional and national partners to collectively advocate for comprehensive, research-based and equitable planning and policies to reduce flood risk in Virginia. She is committed to bringing together sound science and effective communications to develop and implement locally-supported solutions that address historical inequities and build resilience for communities and ecosystems in the face of climate change. Grace previously served as the Program Coordinator for the Climate Resilient Coasts and Watersheds team, working with our Restore the Mississippi River Delta coalition’s science and federal policy teams on natural infrastructure, adaptive management, coastal legislation, and behavioral science initiatives. She earned her B.S. in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences with concentration in Water Resource Policy and Management and a minor in Law and Society from Cornell University.

 

Emily leads EDF’s Virginia program to build and maintain collaborative partnerships to collectively advocate for comprehensive, research-based and equitable coastal planning and policies, ensuring resilient communities and ecosystems as the Commonwealth adapts to a changing climate. She holds a JD and Master’s in Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law School and a BA in Economics and History from the University of Virginia. Emily serves on the WHRO Governing Board, the Lynnhaven River NOW Board of Directors and on the City of Virginia Beach’s Wetlands and Flood Prevention Bond Referendum Oversight Boards.


 

 

Tuesday, November 14 

 

"Coastal Hazard Studies using AI-Enabled Field Reconnaissance"

Session date & time: Tuesday, November 14 | 8:30-9:15am

 

The reliability of overland wave modeling using WHAFIS relies on accurate data representation along transects for model inputs. Previously, detailed field observations were necessary, but now high-resolution street-level data from tools like Google Earth™ can enhance surveys. Our proposed framework shows the ability to use Google Earth street view imagery combined with computer vision to estimate First Flood Elevations (FFEs) of buildings along transects. This automated workflow can reduce the need for field surveys, providing a cost-effective approach validated against elevation certificates for planning and mitigation studies.

 

Speaker:

 

Arslaan Khalid, PhD

 

Dr. Arslaan Khalid is currently serving as a Senior Coastal Engineer for a leading engineering firm. He brings expertise in coastal and riverine flood risk modeling/evaluation, geospatial analysis for flood mapping, estimation of risk using latest analysis techniques, and developing real time flood forecast systems. His technical expertise includes 2D hydrodynamic and wave modeling (ADCIRC, Delft3D, SWAN, WAVEWATCHIII) and advanced programming for big-data analysis. He is also experienced in parallel processing, cloud computing and advanced visualization techniques. He has demonstrated these skills for problem solving across several water resources projects in research as well as industry.

 

 

"Unlock Efficiency by Using eLOMA for Streamlined LOMA Applications"

Session date & time: Tuesday, November 14 | 9:15-10:00am

 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Electronic Letter of Map Amendment (eLOMA) tool provides licensed land surveyors and professional engineers with a web-based system to submit a variety of LOMA requests as a faster alternative to the standard application process. The eLOMA tool offers users the advantage of swiftly generating an official FEMA determination document, significantly reducing the usual processing period of 30 to 60 days for a standard LOMA. eLOMA enables users to submit applications for individual structures, a portion of a recorded property, or entire legally recorded parcels of land, provided no fill has been placed to raise the elevations of the subject structure or property. The eLOMA tool is available to any licensed professional who registers through FEMA's Mapping Information Platform, which is located online at https://hazards.fema.gov.

 

This presentation will:

 

•        Provide a summary of the eLOMA tool;

•        Highlight plans for a comprehensive eLOMA Technical Guidance document and future trainings and web-based learning opportunities;

•        Provide insight into how the accuracy of eLOMA submittals correlates directly with audit frequency; and

•        Discuss the steps necessary to achieve an eLOMA Super User status to reduce the number of audited submittals.

 

Speaker:

 

David Mummert

 

David Mummert has over 21 years of National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) experience with Michael Baker International in the MT-1 (LOMA) Group. He is a graduate of St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a degree in Biology with a specialization in Environmental Science. He is currently the Flood Map Amendment Services (FMAS) contract eLOMA Coordinator for all 10 FEMA Regions and Subject Matter Expert for LOMA and eLOMA processing through FEMA’s Mapping Information Platform (MIP) website.

 

 

"Rolling Easements"

Session date & time: Tuesday, November 14 | 10:30-11:15am

Wetlands Watch is helping coordinate the recordation of the first private rolling conservation easement in the US. In partnership with a local land trust, the Coastal VA Conservancy, Wetlands Watch is working with the Elizabeth River Project to develop a rolling conservation easement that will be placed over the organization’s new Resilience Lab headquarters. A rolling conservation easement “rolls” along with shoreline encroachment due to sea level rise, enforcing development restrictions that reflect the changing parcel characteristics. In addition to prohibiting new and future development, this legal instrument can help facilitate the migration of shoreline buffers, dunes, living shorelines, and wetlands, ensuring species survival and preservation of ecosystem services, such as erosion control, flood mitigation, habitat, and water quality. 

 

This legal instrument could provide one tool to help local governments plan for retreat as sea levels rise. In addition to being a planning tool, property owners who agree to a rolling easement could receive federal or state tax benefits. In this way, property owners can play a crucial role in how communities prepare for climate change, while also receiving financial benefits. This presentation will focus on the coordination between Wetlands Watch and various stakeholders to record the rolling conservation easement, and how this process can potentially work in other coastal communities. Additionally, this presentation will highlight lessons learned from recording the rolling easement, including the importance of transparency among all stakeholders involved.

Speakers:

Mary-Carson Stiff, CFM , JD

Mary-Carson Stiff is Executive Director of Wetlands Watch, a Norfolk, Virginia based nonprofit working statewide to conserve nature in a changing climate. Mary-Carson leads Wetlands Watch with a specific focus on climate change adaptation planning, floodplain management, wetlands migration, and policy. She is a Certified Floodplain Manager, Chair of the Coastal Virginia Community Rating System Workgroup, and Board Member of the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation. Mary-Carson obtained a J.D. in 2013 from William & Mary Law School and a B.A. from Bates College in 2008.

Savannah Newbern

 

Savannah Newbern, Flood Risk Project Manager for Wetlands Watch is a coastal planning enthusiast who has previously worked in local government on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for Dare and Currituck counties. While serving as a Planner for these communities, Savannah worked in floodplain management and administered the National Flood Insurance Program’s Community Rating System (CRS), as well as reviewed development plans for compliance with local, state, and federal requirements. Savannah graduated from East Carolina University with a Bachelor of Science in Urban and Regional Planning with a concentration in neighborhood development and housing and a minor in anthropology.

 

 "A Journey to a Smart Watershed"

Session date & time: Tuesday, November 14 | 10:30-11:15am

 

Urban stormwater management represents one of the most pervasive, significant environmental issues in the U.S. Due to shifts in the frequency and intensity of rainfall events, increasing economic development, and urbanization, cities and communities are faced with growing challenges around flood risk management and protection of property, public health, and safety.

 

With advancements in technology, communities are starting to better understand the behavior of their sewersheds, improve utilization of new and existing infrastructure, and cost-effectively achieve regulatory compliance and public safety. Successful adoption and growth of such technologies requires consideration of changes to procurement, project delivery, operations, culture, and partner and public engagement.

 

This presentation will focus on the benefits of a digitally connected watershed and the lessons learned from cities and utilities along their journey. Case studies highlighted will include Fairfax County, Howard County, and Albany, NY and their approach in leveraging technology to mitigate the impacts of flooding (and combined sewer overflows in Albany). Presentation topics will include:

 

Getting started

Procurement

Project implementation and sewershed optimization

On-boarding

Operations and maintenance

Managing the data landscape

 

Learning Outcomes for “A Journey to a Smart Watershed”

Navigating the digital landscape

Understanding scaled adoption - from procurement to operations and maintenance

 

Speaker: Jason Murnock, CPESC, CPSWQ

 

Though not an engineer, Jason has over 20 years of experience in water quality and quantity projects, particularly in ecological restoration for Chesapeake Bay and MS4 permit-driven TMDL reductions. This has given him a broad understanding of nutrient credit generation and trading, as well as climate resiliency needs here in Virginia. The smarter use of stormwater management via real-time controls can assist in all of these challenges, as you will hear in his presentation. 

 

 

 

"Planning for Climate Change: Approach to Estimating and Adapting Flooding Exposure for HRSD Facilities"

Tuesday, November 14 | 11:20-12:05am

 

The Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD) provides wastewater services to 1.7 million people in southeast Virginia. The low topography, regional climatology, and coastal proximity of this region make many of HRSD’s pumping and treatment facilities vulnerable to flooding. This vulnerability is increasing with climate change and rising sea levels, increased storm surge, and greater rainfall recurrence frequency. HRSD facilities are located over a wide expanse of over 3,000 sq. miles, posing a significant challenge to accurately determine flood elevations. To make these large-scale analyses both accurate and practicable, a tiered framework of flood risk evaluation was adopted to account for susceptibility to coastal, pluvial, and/or fluvial flooding. Based on flooding type, site-specific exposure was computed using hydrodynamic models. Storm surge elevations utilized the high-fidelity models employed by USACE for the North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study. Pluvial and fluvial flood elevations were determined using two-dimensional hydraulics in HEC-RAS and by expanding on available base flood elevations published by FEMA, respectively.

 

The flooding exposure evaluations completed as part of the HRSD Climate Change Planning Study are intended to support subsequent vulnerability assessment and mitigation analysis planning tasks. The completed analyses can be updated in the future to include additional detail for designing and implementing site-specific mitigation measures.

 

Speaker: Jayanthi "Jay" Gopal, PE

 

Jay has over a decade of experience as a water resources engineer and her primary interests are surface water modeling and climate resilience. She has been involved in the development, calibration, and application of detailed hydrologic and hydraulic models to support planning and design of stormwater systems and climate resilience studies. Jay holds a master’s in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Nature-based Design Approaches in Floodplain and Coastal Management

 

Session date & time: Tuesday, November 14 | 11:20-12:05am

As regulatory frameworks push municipalities towards holistic land management and nature-based design approaches that deliver stacked benefits, interdisciplinary floodplain restoration is an increasingly important tool for planning and prioritization. Restoration practitioners from Biohabitats, a company with a broad portfolio in floodplain restoration and nature-based design, will draw from their experience serving municipalities and other clients across Virginia and the nation to review the process of collaborative planning from inventory to assessment to prioritization and public engagement. This presentation will examine restoration approaches in floodplain and coastal management through recent project examples.

 

Speaker:

 

Justin Park, PLA, ASLA

 

Justin Park is a Senior Landscape Architect with Biohabitats, Inc, an interdisciplinary ecological design firm based in Baltimore, Md. Justin graduated with a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Mary Washington (Fredericksburg, VA) and a M.L.A. from Virginia Tech (WAAC - Alexandria, VA). Although he has been involved with stormwater LID and stream/wetland restoration projects, his recent project focus is on coastal restoration and resiliency along urban waterfronts.

"CRS: Current Communities”

Session date & time: Tuesday, November 14 | 2:20-3:05pm

 

Speaker: Emily Schmidt, CFM

 

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T the Floodplain"

Session date & time: Tuesday, November 14 | 2:20-3:05pm

 

In urban stream corridors, we are often faced with a plethora of design goals and objectives, as well as constraints. These can conflict with one another and require stakeholders to carefully navigate the prioritization process and strike a balance to provide reasonable, effective solutions. A key factor that frequently plays into these discussions and decisions is the presence of regulated floodplains, and what is required to satisfy “No Rise” criteria. This presentation will explore examples of this decision-making process and how stakeholder involvement has been critical to achieving positive outcomes.

 

Speaker:

 

Megan McCollough, PE, CFM, ENV SP

 

Megan McCollough is a Senior Engineer, working out of the Fredericksburg office. She currently serves as Stantec's Technical Area Lead for surface water in the United States. She completed her undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech - focusing on Environmental/Water Resources, and with minors in Green Engineering, Geology, and Music. Megan obtained her graduate degree in Engineering from Colorado State University, focusing on water resources and utilities management. Megan's key technical interests include stream restoration design, stormwater management, and floodplain management, and much of her experience is in urban areas and supporting transportation-focused projects. She enjoys working with creative, collaborative teams and supporting staff on their growth journeys.

 

 

"The National Flood Insurance Program’s Recent History and Projected Future Can Be Summed Up in One Word - Changes"

Tuesday, November 14 | 3:15-4:00pm

In the past few years, the method with which NFIP flood insurance policies were written went through the first significant changes in the almost 50-year history of the program.  This new NFIP rating methodology, also known as Risk Rating 2.0: Equity in Action, sought to modernize the rating process through providing policyholders with the true actuarial risk by drawing on numerous data sources.  This presentation will provide a review of the many changes and factors that now go into how NFIP flood insurance policies are rated.  This will be followed by an overview of some proposed methods to address affordability concerns surrounding flood insurance.  We will also discuss the availability of certain NFIP data that communities can request and the process to make such requests.

Speaker:

Bill Bradfield, CFM

William (Bill) Bradfield is a Flood Insurance Outreach Specialist with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Region 3 Office in Philadelphia.  In this role, Mr. Bradfield promotes the importance of flood insurance in building resiliency and serves as a liaison between consumers, local/state/tribal governments, industry professionals and FEMA.  He also provides technical assistance regarding flood insurance and its implications with floodplain regulations and mitigation activities. 

 

"Floodplain Design, Construction & Impacts on Flood Insurance"

Session date & time: Tuesday, November 14 | 3:15-4:00 pm

 

In this 1-hour course, we’ll identify FEMA, NFIP, ASCE, ICC and Building Code Standards that

pertain to flood hazard areas. The goal is to review the potential risk associated with building in the floodplain and the mitigation steps you can take to protect structures and maintain business continuity. After the training, attendees should have a thorough understanding of the floodproofing options available as well as the recent updates and changes in the world of floodplain design.

 

Learning Objectives:

• Describe floods and the potential hazards

to buildings.

• Explain the differences between wet and

dry floodproofing techniques.

• Define the differences in engineered and

non-engineered flood openings and their

ability to ensure resilient structures.

• Active vs. passive flood proofing solutions

and the overall impact of ownership.

 

Speaker:

 

Kurt Luecke, CFM

 

Kurt Luecke is a Graduate of Kansas State University, a Certified Floodplain Manager and Flood Mitigation Specialist at Floodproofing.com. Kurt works directly with A&E and GC Estimating and Planning teams throughout the design build process providing expertise on FEMA, NFIP, ICC and ASCE guidance regulations. While keeping on-site resources and application needs in mind, they help evaluate flood mitigation solutions that will minimize liability risk and meet compliance regulations for structural and non-structural projects.

Screenshot 2023-10-31 at 3.40_edited.jpg

Take a look at the 2022 Conference Program: 

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

7:30-8:30am | Registration & Breakfast

8:30-9:15am | Commonwealth of Virginia Flood Resilience Updates - Darryl Glover Deputy Director for Dam Safety, Floodplain Management, and Soil and Water Conservation Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation Breakfast continued

Darryl M. Glover is the Deputy Agency Director for Dam Safety, Floodplain Management,
and Soil and Water Conservation, at the Virginia Department of Conservation and
Recreation (DCR). He has worked at DCR, most recently, since 2011 where he was the
Regional Operations Manager from 2011 – 2014, Director of the Division of Soil and Water
Conservation from 2014 – 2021, then Deputy Agency Director in July 2021.
Prior to DCR, Glover was the Director of the Office of Water Monitoring and Assessment
at the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality from 2002 – 2011. He also served as
the York Watershed Manager at DCR in the late 1990’s, Senior Environmental Engineer at
the Chesapeake Bay Local Assistance Department, Environmental Specialist at the
Virginia Department of Transportation, and a Coal Reclamation Inspector at the Virginia
Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy in the early 1980’s.
Glover was born in Philadelphia, PA and was educated at Cornell University in Ithaca,
New York with a degree in Geological Science.

9:15-10am | Risk Rating 2.0 Implementation/NFIP Updates - Rich Sobota Senior Insurance Specialist, FEMA Region 3

10-10:15am | Morning Networking Break

10:15am-11am |  Bottom-up Approaches to FIMA’s Four-Legged Stool - Megan LeBoon, PE Project Manager, Atkins

11-11:45am |  Wetlands Watch Floodplain Management Work - Mary-Carson Stiff, JD, CFM Policy Director, Wetlands Watch Madison Teeter, CFM, CBLP Program Associate, Wetlands Watch

Mary-Carson Stiff is Director of Policy at Wetlands Watch where she specializes in the National Flood Insurance Program and sea level rise adaptation planning and policy. She is a Certified Floodplain Manager and Chair of the Coastal Virginia Community Rating System Workgroup. Before joining Wetlands Watch, she worked as Consulting Manager for Policy & Programs for the Virginia Coastal Policy Center at William & Mary Law School, where she obtained a J.D. in 2013. Mary-Carson graduated from Bates College with a B.A. in 2008.

 

Madison Teeter is the Program Associate for Wetlands Watch, and has been in this role for two and half years. Previously, she attended NC State University and earned her master's in Climate Change & Society while also working for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Madison works on a variety of different initiatives, including the Coastal Virginia CRS Workgroup and promoting the Community Flood Preparedness Fund statewide. 

Noon-1pm | LUNCH KEYNOTEThe Road to FEMA Enhanced Hazard Mitigation Status - Tom Hughes Director, EM Mitigation, Insurance & Resilient Communities Office Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency

Tom Hughes is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's State Hazard Mitigation Officer (SHMO) since 2009 and has been with the PA Emergency Management Agency since late 1993. Currently, as the SHMO
(Since 2009), he is responsible for the revision of all 67 FEMA required county Hazard Mitigation Plans
and 14 State System of Higher Education (state colleges) Disaster Resistant University Plans. Currently
his office has over 90 working FEMA/State/Locally funded disaster and non-disaster Hazard Mitigation
projects. He was recently elected as the President of the National Hazard Mitigation Association, is co-
chair of the nationally recognized Pennsylvania Silver Jackets Team, completed his assignment with
FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Assistance External Stakeholder Working Group (ESWG) and fills a
mentorship/alumni role. Working with 7 Recovery Support Functions, completed a tour with the COVID-
19 State Long-Term Recovery Task Force and leading the mitigation efforts for recently released COVID-
19 DR-4506 and Tropical Storm Ida DR-4618 Hazard Mitigation Grant Program grants.

This session will discuss how state’s can position their activities, to include Floodplain Management, Flood Mitigation Planning and Flood Mitigation Scoping and project delivery, to assist the state to become an enhanced state, and discuss the process that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania completed, working with floodplain managers, to achieve this status.

1-1:45pm | Collaboration for Preparedness- Understanding and Planning for Dam Risk for Communities on a Watershed Basis - Edward G. Beadenkopf, PE, CFM Vice President, Atkins

Edward G. (Ed) Beadenkopf has over 46 years of experience specializing in flood hazard identification and infrastructure risk assessments. This experience includes the planning and design of structural flood control measures including dams and levees and the planning to support non-structural mitigation actions. For the past decade, Ed has provided technical services to FEMA Headquarters in support of the National Dam Safety Program most recently supporting the High Hazard Dam Rehabilitation Grant Program. In 2013 Ed served as the principal author of FEMA P-946 “Guidelines for Standard Approaches to Inundation Mapping of Flood Risk Associated with Dam Incidents and Failures”. Ed has supported multiple federal agencies including the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), FEMA, Department of Justice (DOJ), National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the National Park Service (NPS) providing hydrological assessments and litigation support.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Dam Safety Program collaborates with FEMA’s National Integration Center to deliver the Dam Safety Collaborative Technical Assistance (CTA) program. The CTA assists communities in building their “toolbox” to effectively coordinate planning efforts for dam risks. The CTA program helps communities at risk for flooding due to operational discharge or dam-related infrastructure failure to gain a better understanding of the consequences of dam-related emergencies and to develop risk-informed plans. The CTA engages participants in a facilitated process to build relationships, develop plans, and collaborate with community partners to achieve the goal of increased preparedness to dam-related hazards. As opposed to an individualized dam focus, communities work together to consider the risks associated with the entire watershed from the headwaters to the floodplains. Communities look at dam risks and its associated data in the upper watershed and plan for the impacts of the risks in the lower watershed. Past CTA efforts across the US and most recently in Puerto Rico and in Western Maryland have highlighted the need for dam owners, community representatives, state dam safety officials and Emergency Managers to look beyond just the dam safety deficiencies of a dam but also the consequences the dam has on the hydrologic performance in the downstream watershed during normal operations to extreme events. The consequences include life loss considerations, potential economic losses, and the interdependencies of the loss of a dam to the functions of a community. A key function of the CTA is to compare the compatibility of Emergency Actions Plans with Emergency Operations Plans and to test this compatibility with a scenario-based tabletop exercise resulting in identified actions to increase preparedness. Yes, dam safety is and should be focused on individual dams to address deficiencies to reduce the risk of dam failures. However, not all risk can be avoided, and we must be prepared. A watershed approach to dam safety addressing risk identification, risk communication, risk mitigation, and emergency preparedness associated with residual risk management is our safest approach to dam safety.

1:45-2:30pm | Overview of VDWR Dam Removal and Fish Passage Restoration Efforts - Alan Weaver Fish Passage Coordinator, Virginia Dept. of Wildlife Resources

Alan Weaver is the Fish Passage Coordinator for the Virginia Department of Wildlife
Resources (DWR). He has worked on numerous dam removal and fish passage
construction projects in Virginia over the past 28 years. Alan conducts annual
monitoring of fishways and removals to obtain population status information for
migratory fishes such as American Shad, river herring and American Eel. He currently
chairs the Virginia Alosa Task Force, represents DWR on the Chesapeake Bay Program
Fish Passage Work Group and is an active member of the Virginia Stream Barrier
Removal Task Force. He is also a member of the Virginia Chapter of the American
Fisheries Society. Prior to DWR, Alan worked as an Urban Fishing Project biologist
with the state of Florida and as an Environmental Specialist with the Virginia Water
Control Board. He earned a B.S. in Biology from Geneva College (PA) in 1989 and his
M.S. from Virginia Commonwealth University in Aquatic Ecology in 1991.

There are approximately 1,300 known dams in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay watershed and at least
550 known dams in Virginia’s Albemarle Sound drainage. Migration barriers are one of the
reasons for the decline of migratory fish species, and dams alter natural stream function and pose
safety threats to waterway users. Virginia is a signatory of the 1987 Chesapeake Bay Agreement
and all subsequent updates. The Agreement calls for fish passage wherever necessary to reopen
access to migratory fishes for restoration purposes. The Virginia Department of Wildlife
Resources works with federal, state and local government, as well as non-government and
private, partners to provide passage by removing impediments, constructing fishways or
retrofitting road stream crossings. When feasible, dam removal is preferred due to the additional
benefits of stream restoration, boating safety improvements, and in some cases such as low-head
dams, minor reduction in upstream area flooding risk. More than 40 dams have been removed in
Virginia mostly in the Chesapeake Bay Drainage (four in Albemarle Sound Drainage). Eighteen
fishways, breaches or notches have been completed in Chesapeake and Albemarle waters.
Additionally, several road stream crossing retrofits have been completed across Virginia.
Thousands of upstream functional network miles have been reopened in Virginia by barrier
removal and fish passage construction efforts. While original Chesapeake Bay fish passage
mileage goals have been met, Bay states are continuing to work toward new goals to provide
habitat access for Brook Trout, diadromous (anadromous and catadromous) fishes as well as
resident fishes. Monitoring of several projects has confirmed target fish species passage and
some fishways provide long term trend data useful in assessment of anadromous fish
populations.

2:30-2:45pm| Afternoon Networking Break

2:45pm-3:30pm | Hazard Mitigation Grants and Equity in Mitigation - Debbie Messmer State Hazard Mitigation Officer, Virginia Dept. of Emergency Management

 

Debbie Messmer is the State Hazard Mitigation Officer with the Virginia Department of Emergency
Management. She oversees the programmatic and financial implementation of the FEMA Hazard
Mitigation Assistance grants. She is a graduate of St. Andrews University in North Carolina, and her
degree is in History and Political Science. Debbie is a Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM).

This presentation will provide an overview of FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant programs and
eligible project types.  Additionally, it will outline how VDEM is weaving equity into mitigation across the
Commonwealth.

3:30-4:15pm | Resilient Design Guidelines for Hampton Roads - Ben McFarlane, AICP, CFM Senior Regional Planner, Hampton Roads Planning District Commission

Ben McFarlane is a Senior Regional Planner for the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, the regional planning organization for southeastern Virginia. Mr. McFarlane has been with the HRPDC for fourteen years and is the lead planner for the Commission’s work on coastal resiliency, coastal zone management, and military-locality coordination. He received a B.A. in Economics and a Master’s of Urban and Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and a Certified Floodplain Manager.

Developing public policies that mitigate current and future flood risk requires accounting for risk, uncertainty, and the cost of implementation. The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission has been working with its Coastal Resiliency Committee to develop climate-informed policies for stormwater and floodplain management that account for future conditions. This effort has included developing products and datasets that project sea level rise, future flood extents, probabilistic water levels, rainfall intensity-duration-frequency values, and design storms scenarios that account for both tides and rainfall. These analysis products are then used to create specific policy language and tools that local governments can incorporate into their local water management policies and ordinances.

CRS  1:1 Sessions | Blue Ridge DE

CRS 1:1 Sessions are with ISO/CRS Specialist Emily Schmidt. These sessions are available to both CRS and nonCRS communities that are interested in joining the program. Conference attendees must sign up for these sessions in advance at the Registration Table. 

  • 9:15-10am

  • 10:15-10:45am

  • 10:45-11:15am

  • 11:15-11:45am

  • 1-1:30pm

  • 1:30-2pm

  • 2-2:30pm

  • 2:45-3:15pm

  • 3:15-3:45pm

  • 3:45-4:15pm

RESERVE YOUR CRS SESSION NOW!

Thursday, October 27, 2022

7:30-8:30am | Registration & Breakfast

8:30-9:15am | Flood Recovery Efforts in Southwest Virginia - C. Eric Young, JD County Administrator, Tazewell County

Charles "Eric" Young, a Tazewell, Virginia native, graduated from Emory & Henry College, summa cum laude, in 1993, majoring in both Political Science and Economics with a minor in Sociology. Young
interned with the Honorable Glen Williams, Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of
Virginia. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1996 and clerked for Justice
Koontz of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in the summer of 1995. A member of the Virginia State
Bar since 1996, he served as Assistant County Attorney for Tazewell County, Virginia from 2004-2006
and then as County Attorney for Tazewell County from 2006 to 2019. Young was appointed to the
Virginia State Bar Board of Governors for Local Government Law in 2011, serving as Chairman in 2017.
In 2012 Young was designated by the Virginia General Assembly to serve as co-counsel for the Coal and
Gas Severance Tax Reform advisory committee. In 2018 Young was appointed County Administrator for Tazewell County. As County Administrator his duties include acting as the County's Director of Emergency Management.

9:15-10am | Floodplain Analysis for Infrastructure Projects - Scott Blossom, PE, CFM, LEED AP Owner/Senior Engineer, Blossom Consulting & Engineering

9:15-10am | Leveraging Resources Protection Areas in CRS - John Saunders, PE, CFM Environmental Programs Administrator, Stafford County

John leads the Environmental Programs division for Stafford County's Department of Development Services responsible for implementing the County's Virginia Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management Programs, MS4, Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, Dam Safety, and Floodplain Management Programs. John is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute with a Bachelor's of Science in Civil Engineering. He is a licensed professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia and a Certified Floodplain Manager.

Breakdown of the GIS processing and analysis used during Stafford County's 2021 CRS Verification Visit to maximize points under Activity 420 - Open Space Preservation. The presentation will provide a quick overview of Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Areas (RPA) and how those tie into the open space definitions from the CRS manual and a discussion on the guidance document for crediting SFHA open space for RPAs, dated June 29, 2021.

Further instruction into setting up ArcMap and shapefiles to accurately geo-process areas that are both within the SFHA and RPA and demonstrate the different steps needed to exclude certain areas noted from the guidance document, i.e. previously developed tracts of land.

Results from the analysis and discuss the impact to Stafford County's improvement from a Class 7 to Class 6 community, in large part due to 1128 points awarded for Activity 420 (roughly half of Stafford's total credit, i.e. over three Classes worth of points).

10-10:15am | Morning Networking Break

10:15am-11am |  Floodplain Design and Construction with Impacts on Flood Insurance - Kurt Luecke, CFM Flood Mitigation Specialist, Floodproofing.com

A CFM and Flood Mitigation Specialist for Floodproofing.com where Luecke works directly with all parties involved in floodplain management, design, build, and habitation to help identify compliance issues and find mitigation solutions that mitigate damage, improve recovery time and lower liability risk for site-based or linear projects.

This course provides insight into the importance of proper foundation flood vents and dry floodproofing techniques for buildings located in a flood zone. It will identify FEMA Technical Bulletins 1, 2, and 3, the National Flood Insurance Program, ASCE 24-14, ICC, and Building Code regulations and standards as they relate to sustaining foundations and overall business continuity in flood hazard areas. The course will also analyze the role of building compliance in securing lower flood insurance rates and what mitigation solutions are available for both residential and non residential structures. After the course, participants will have a thorough understanding of floodproofing options and the important role they play in designing a sustainable structure.

10:15am-11am | Developing a Substantial Damage Response Plan - Danny Hinson, CFM Senior Mitigation Planner, Tetra Tech

Danny Hinson has 38 years of experience in floodplain and emergency management programs. Past experience includes managing the Florida Community Rating System state-wide initiative seeking to support over 200 FL CRS communities with annual maintenance and improving their CRS program. Danny also supported the FL Division of Emergency Management by responding as a FDEM Liaison to various counties post disaster. Danny has supported communities around the US with CRS support. Danny was a member of the CRS Task Force for three years (2015-2018) Among his accomplishments, the following show expertise: National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), Community Rating System (CRS), Florida Professional Emergency Manager (FPEM), Addressed national conferences on floodplain management

The United States has experienced unprecedented natural disasters with significant impacts to structures in the past. Whether it is a hurricane, flood, fire, or another type of incident, addressing substantial damage is a requirement of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). NFIP-participating communities must adopt and enforce a flood damage prevention ordinance that meets or exceeds the NFIP minimum standards found in 44 CFR 60.3. These require substantial damage evaluations based on inspection of structures that have incurred damage of at least 50% of their pre-damage value. Communities can benefit by creating a pre-disaster substantial damage response plan (SDRP) to facilitate the process and enable elected officials and the whole community to better understand the substantial damage process. Disasters are over-whelming to staff and residents are eager to begin making repairs and/or reconstruct with hopes of returning to normal life. The recovery process must follow specific regulations to reduce or eliminate damages due to repetitive flooding. In order to adequately prepare for the after-effects of a disaster, it is crucial to develop a strategy to conduct substantial damage assessments prior to an incident. Approaching substantial damage assessments with a response plan will expedite orderly recovery. Until now, there have been few options to address this type of proactive planning in the floodplain manager’s toolbox. In order to address this, Tetra Tech has developed an approach that uses the framework of a Community Rating System Substantial Damage Plan (SDP) enhanced with a “response” feature to create a functional and potentially CRS creditable SDRP. The SDRP includes a Structure Inventory Database to identify and triage the most likely areas of a community that have damage sufficient to trigger substantial damage inspections. In this workshop, we will review a model SDRP template along with the following Fact Sheets that walk through the process of implementing a SDRP: 1. Why develop a Substantial Damage Response Plan 2. Conducting a Community Assessment 3. Creating a Structure Inventory Database 4. Performing a Tabletop Exercise 5. Deploying the Substantial Damage Response Plan It is not uncommon for a FEMA Regional office to conduct a Community Assessment Visit (CAV) post-incident to evaluate a community’s response to a disaster. Conducting substantial damage assessments as a part of an executed plan, provides documentation of procedures for FEMA much easier for the Floodplain Manager. The same data or findings from the SDRP can be used for projects in the community hazard mitigation plan or LMS.

 

11-11:45am |  Standing up Virginia’s Coastal Resilience Master Plan - Brian Batten, PhD, CFM Senior Associate, Dewberry

11-11:45am | Incorporating Technology in Flood Mitigation - Mark Slauter Flood Consultant, FloodMapp

Mark has a Master in Urban & Regional Planning from VCU and currently works with FloodMapp, a flood intelligence software company located in Brisbane, Australia. Prior to working with FloodMapp, Mark held various positions at the VA Department of Emergency Management, the VA Department of Conservation & Recreation, and the VA Department of Environmental Quality.

Flooding is occurring with increasing frequency; more days of nuisance flooding and more short-duration heavy rainfall events create additional stressors on the functionality of our road infrastructure. While these increased impacts occur in urban, suburban, and rural areas, coastal cities face the additional stressors of tidal fluctuations, limited storm sewer capacities, sea-level rise, or land subsidence. Together, these stressors are forcing resiliency officers, local floodplain managers, and emergency managers to implement creative adaptation techniques. The City of Norfolk, Virginia, collaborated with RISE Resilience Innovations, Waze and FloodMapp in a project that dynamically modeled the various flood factors to implement an operational real-time flood intelligence capability. The outcome was to provide flooded road intelligence to drivers. FloodMapp was able to provide this capability by modifying its existing real-time flood modeling into RoadSafe. The live flooded road data is supplied to the City, then sent to the Waze app for public consumption. This allows the City to inform the public and re-route drivers by virtually closing roads. So far, the system has successfully and safely routed thousands of residents around flooded roads.

Noon-1pm | LUNCH PROGRAMASFPM Updates & 2022 VFMA Awards Ceremony - Necolle Maccherone, CFM Senior Project Manager, Atkins and VFMA Awards Committee

1-1:45pm | The Long Road to Compliance: RVs in the Floodplain - Whitney McNamara Floodplain Administrator and CRS Coordinator, City of Virginia Beach

Whitney McNamara is an Environmental Planner for the City of Virginia Beach. She oversaw Virginia Beach's entrance into the Community Rating System as a Class 7 community in 2019, and currently serves as CRS Coordinator and Floodplain Administrator. Whitney graduated from Duke University with a Master of Environmental Management degree with a concentration in Coastal Environmental Management in 2012, and from University of North Carolina Wilmington with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Marine Biology with a Minor in Environmental Studies in 2010.

A case study detailing steps Virginia Beach has taken to bring four separate RV parks into compliance in the Special Flood Hazard Area. RV parks range from traditional campgrounds, to a 10-10-10 RV Resort on the North Landing River, to a condominium RV community where RV's sell for over $250,000 and required creation of a new zoning classification.

1-1:45pm | Residential Flood Hazard Mitigation - Education for Adaptation John D. Sargent Chief Executive Officer, Resilient Enterprise Solutions, LLC

John has three decades of experience in executive management and technical roles in both mature and start-up businesses, with a focus on making businesses scalable and bringing management and technology skills to proactively driven service contractors. He has engaged in consulting and executive management positions for LINC Corporation, TEGG Corporation, and LandOpt, LLC. In 2018, John led a study team commissioned by Ducky Johnson to evaluate the business opportunity for developing, training, and supporting a franchised network of home elevation and flood hazard mitigation service contractors. The findings of the study resulted in the formation of Resilient Enterprise Solutions, LLC, in early 2019, which included Ducky Johnson as a founding member. John leads the RES Home Raising Academy Team, initially funded under a HUD-CDBG grant through the RISE Resilience Challenge of 2019 to promote workforce development in Hampton Roads. With the completion of the RISE project, the RES Home Raising Academy is now expanding its scope of services and coverage area throughout eastern U.S. coastal areas threatened by climate change induced flooding and storm surge. John has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering (’88) and a M.S. in Information Networking (’90), both from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.

Residential flood hazard mitigation projects, esp. structural elevation project funded with public monies, can be a daunting experience for all parties involved. They require a comprehensive approach for education and outreach. We will discuss the state of the art education and outreach framework needed today, leveraging experiences and lessons learned from successes in other marketplaces. Homeowners must understand their available mitigation options and the steps they must proactively undertake to get things started. Best practices of the more experienced local and county governments must be distilled and disseminated to their less experienced counterparts. Design, engineering, and construction service providers require upskilling in industry concepts and the particulars of these projects to meet rising demand while tendering proposals at competitive prices. A centrally administered, proactively delivered education and outreach program is crucial for maximizing homeowner buy-in and participation, reducing friction between stakeholders, and providing the ability to scale up deployments while ensuring safety and maintaining project budgets and schedules.

1:45-2:30pm | Surviving a FEMA Community Assistance Visit - Kristin Owen, AICP, CFM Floodplain & Dam Safety Manager, Henrico County

Kristin Owen is the Floodplain & Dam Safety Manager for Henrico County, Virginia and the current president of the Virginia Floodplain Management Association. Kristin has extensive state and local government experience in floodplain management and land use planning. Prior to joining Henrico County, Kristin worked for the Commonwealth of Virginia as the Acting NFIP Coordinator, State CRS Coordinator, and co-chair of the Virginia Silver Jackets team. While in this role, she assisted Governor Northam’s Office with developing and implementing two executive orders aimed to reduce flood risk and increase Virginia’s resiliency to natural hazards. She also partnered with Virginia Tech to create and teach a graduate-level course on local floodplain management, which earned her FEMA’s 2019 Best Innovation/Project Award. Before joining the Commonwealth of Virginia, Kristin was the Planning and Floodplain Administrator for Teton County, Idaho.

Kristin received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from West Virginia University, and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning, a Master of Natural Resources, and Graduate Certificates in Watershed Management and Geospatial Information Technology from Virginia Tech. She is an AICP professional planner and a Certified Floodplain Manager.


A FEMA Community Assistance Visit (CAV) is a community visit that serves the dual purpose of providing technical assistance to the community and assuring that the community is adequately enforcing its floodplain management regulations required for National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) participation. A CAV is required prior to a community being eligible to have a verification visit to join the Community Rating System (CRS) program. Henrico County recently went through the CAV process with FEMA Region 3. This presentation will provide an overview of Henrico County’s approach to preparing for their CAV, challenges faced throughout the process, and lessons learned that helped make the CAV a success.

1:45-2:30pm | Abingdon's Flood Mitigation Plan for Town Creek - Don Rissmeyer, PE, CFM Associate, A Morton Thomas and Associates, Inc.

Don Rissmeyer is a licensed Professional Engineer in multiple states and a Certified Floodplain Manager with more than 30 years of experience in providing consulting engineering services to municipal stormwater clients at the local, state, and federal level. He is a Past-President of the Virginia Section of ASCE and the Virginia Floodplain Management Association, and a member of the Virginia Municipal Stormwater Association and the Joint Legislative Committee for ACEC Virginia.

Community Flood Mitigation at the Local Level can be very challenging due to the limited availability of public funds; however, the flooding problems are becoming more and more of a priority to local elected officials. This presentation of the Flood Mitigation Plan for Town Creek will include common sense approaches to evaluating flood risks, and then reducing the impacts of flooding through infrastructure projects that may utilize outside funding sources to help garner local support for those needs through community outreach. Three miles of HEC-RAS modeling for the floodplain were involved and three recommended infrastructure projects are in various stages of completion to consider for approaches to addressing local flooding issues in other communities.

 

2:30-2:45pm | Afternoon Networking Break

2:45pm-3:30pm | Norfolk Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) Project: Bridging the Gap from Feasibility Study to 35% Design - Matt Fanghella, EIT, CFM Coastal Engineer, City of Norfolk, City Manager’s Office of Resilience

Matt Fanghella serves as the Coastal Engineer in the City of Norfolk City Manager's Office of Resilience working on the Norfolk USACE Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) Project including design and construction of a new 8.5 mile floodwall and elevation of nearly 1000 privately owned structures across the City. As part of his role, Matt also manages the beach damage assessment program, pre and post storm response during hurricanes and other severe weather events where coastal erosion potential is present. Previously Matt served as City Stormwater Engineer and Project Manager in the City of Suffolk, Virginia where he oversaw several multi-million dollar drainage projects. including championing the first project to integrate a Dig-Once concept integrating both stormwater upgrades and sanitary sewer upgrades within the same project. Matt also recognized the need for and championed the development of a City-wide Resilience Plan and self-studied to become the first Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM) in the City , Matt developed multiple grant applications to receive over half a million dollars in grant and federal funding for drainage and dredging projects. Prior to his time in Suffolk. Matt served as Regional MS4 Coordinator at Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) managing the MS4 Program in the Tidewater Region and also served as the Regional State Safety Officer and on the Pollution Response and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) After Hours Response Team. Matt has earned his designation as an Engineer-in-Training (EIT) in the Commonwealth of Virginia and is a Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM) through the Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM). Matt also recently passed his Professional Engineer Exam as well. Matt serves on the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission (HRPDC) Coastal Resiliency Committee, HRPDC Regional Environmental Committee, and HRPDC Stormwater Workgroup collaborating with leaders from other localities and state and federal partners to provide input and technical expertise on flood mitigation, resiliency, stormwater and other drainage and public works projects and initiatives across the Hampton Roads region.

In 2019, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in collaboration with the City of Norfolk published the final Norfolk Coastal Storm Risk Management Program (CSRM) Feasibility Study. The Feasibility Study recommended construction of a 8.5 mile floodwall, three surge barriers, multiple pump stations, and the structural elevation or floodproofing of nearly 1,000 private structures across the City of Norfolk. Since the publication of the 2019 Feasibility Study, the City and USACE have continued this partnership and entered the Pre-construction Engineering and Design phase to move forward with the largest public project in the City of Norfolk’s history. This massive project will be divided into smaller phases over a proposed 10-year period. Currently, the City and USACE are reviewing the design plans for Phase 1A of the Floodwall Alignment, which will extend from the Berkley Bridge to the Campostella Exit Ramp from Interstate 264, and developing a pilot program of initial structures to elevate as part of the Phase 1A Pilot Program. Matt Fanghella, Coastal Engineer from the City of Norfolk City Manager’s Office of Resilience will provide a project update and highlight lessons learned from the Feasibility Study to the 35% Design Plans. Topics and lessons learned include integrating horizontal construction and vertical construction design elements and timelines within the overall project timeline, developing public outreach tools and data apps soon to be unveiled, developing a Floodplain Management Plan based on post-project conditions, ensuring that projects altogether meet requires for FEMA base flood elevations, the Army Corps’ North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study, and State sea level rise requirements of EO 24 & 45.

2:45pm-3:30pm | Automating PeakFQ Stream Gage Analysis with Microsoft’s Power Automate Desktop - Jennifer McGee. PE, CFM, GISP Senior Water Resources Engineer, WSP USA

Ms. McGee is a Water Resources Engineer with WSP USA. She has a background in FEMA’s NFIP program and Public Assistance program for disaster recovery. Her primary work is developing data science applications for engineering projects. She is also the Digital Skills Lead focusing on training Microsoft Office 365 and the Power Platform.

PeakFQ is a software application developed by the US Geological Survey to complete gage analysis based on Bulletin 17B using stream peak flow data. This desktop-based application reads watstore-formatted files. These can be downloaded for any gage from the USGS National Water Information System by accessing the Web Interface, Peak Streamflow for the Nation site (https://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/peak). As part of the Risk MAP program, FEMA has developed an inventory of all mapped miles in the US. This inventory is called the Coordinated Needs Management Strategy (CNMS). CNMS contains basic information about each study’s hydrology, hydraulics, source topography, and much more. Each study in the inventory is given a status of “Valid” and “NVUE Compliant” when the study is newly added or restudied. A set of validation checks are performed every 5 years following the original validation to determine if the flood hazard depicted on the FIRM for that model is still accurate. This is a set of seven (7) critical checks and nine (9) secondary checks for detailed studies, and five (5) checks for approximate studies. The first 2 critical checks are related to stream gage peak flow data: C1: Major change in gage record since effective analysis that includes major flood events C2: Updated and effective peak discharges differ significantly based on confidence limits criteria in FEMA’s G&S To complete a C2 validation check, PeakFQ is used to compare the 100-year discharge for the effective study to the 68% confidence interval of the 100-year discharge for the updated gage data. Therefore, 2 PeakFQ runs are required for each gage with new data. With dozens of previous study validations expiring each month, that amounts to quite a few PeakFQ analysis runs; this is where Power Automate Desktop can help. Power Automate Desktop is one of Microsoft’s low-code platforms that allows users to build workflows that interact with desktop applications. This is a powerful way to automate repetitive tasks for datasets and applications that are not web-enabled nor backed by an Application Programming Interface (API) that would otherwise allow for more traditional programming approaches. Overall, this presentation will first provide a brief background on FEMA’s CNMS program and the PeakFQ application, then provide highlights on how you can use Microsoft’s Power Automate Desktop to complete repetitive tasks with some of the most common actions. For the PeakFQ analysis, this starts with downloading the USGS peak flow data from the web, running the PeakFQ analysis, reading the results file, and saving the key data elements to an Excel table for review and reporting. The final workflow transforms hours of work to just minutes!

3:30-4:15pm | Nonstructural Flood Mitigation - Balancing Buildings, People and Priorities - Matthew Simons, AICP, CFM Coastal Resiliency Manager, City of Norfolk, City Manager's Office of Resilience

Matt Simons is an advocate for resilience planning throughout Virginia. A former City Planner for Norfolk,
Matt has spent over a decade serving the residents and stakeholders of Norfolk as a program leader,
serving as Norfolk’s Floodplain Administrator and recently transforming Norfolk within the Community
Rating System of the National Flood Insurance Program; taking Norfolk from last place in Virginia, to first
place as of April 1st, 2022. This program provides Norfolk residents with nearly $2M in total annual flood
insurance savings, making flood insurance more affordable for Norfolk’s most vulnerable residents. Matt
Simons is a Certified Floodplain Manager, an AICP-certified Urban Planner, and is serving as Interim
President for the Virginia Floodplain Managers Association. Since the end of 2021, Matt has joined the
Norfolk City Manager’s Office of Resilience, and the Resilience Office has announced the start of a $1.7
billion dollar project to protect Norfolk from catastrophic flooding through construction of multiple flood
walls around the City. The project was recently awarded nearly $400M in federal funds through President
Biden’s Infrastructure Law.

3:30-4:15pm | eLOMA – A Collaborative Tool for Licensed Professionals, Communities, and FEMA - David Mummert eLOMA Coordinator, Michael Baker International

David Mummert has over 20 years of National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) experience with Michael Baker International in the MT-1 (LOMA) Group. He is a graduate of St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a degree in Biology with a specialization in Environmental Science. He is currently the Northwind Resource Consulting (NWRC) eLOMA Coordinator for all 10 FEMA Regions, Technical Manager for the NWRC MT-1 Group, and Subject Matter Expert for LOMA and eLOMA processing through FEMA’s Mapping Information Platform (MIP) website.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) eLOMA (Electronic Letter of Map Amendment) tool to provides licensed land surveyors and professional engineers with an internet-based system to submit a variety of LOMA requests as a faster alternative to using the standard application process. The eLOMA tool is available to any licensed professional who registers through FEMA's Mapping Information Platform (MIP), which is located online at https://hazards.fema.gov. This presentation will: Provide a summary of the eLOMA tool, Outline improvements to the eLOMA process such as the expansion of accepted request types and application tracking via the new user workbench, Highlight plans for future user trainings and web-based learning opportunities, Provide insight into how the accuracy of eLOMA submittals correlates directly to audit frequency, Discuss the steps necessary to achieve eLOMA Super User status to reduce the number of audited submittals.

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