Executive Summary

Santa Barbara Local Hazard Mitigation Plan Update 2025

Santa Barbara Unified School District is in the process of updating its Hazard Mitigation Plan to reduce losses resulting from natural disasters. This plan strives to identify and reduce vulnerability of the District’s faculty, staff, students, and infrastructure to future hazard events.

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For Project Stakeholders

For Community Members

The Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) is updating its Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP) from 2009 to reduce losses resulting from natural disasters. Hazard mitigation is the use of sustained long-term actions to reduce the loss of life, personal injury and property damage that can result from a disaster. This initiative ensures SBUSD remains eligible for FEMA hazard mitigation funding while strengthening the district’s resilience to natural and human-caused hazards. Covering 20 school sites and serving 15,000 students from Montecito to Goleta, the updated 2025 HMP will provide a strategic roadmap for mitigating risks associated with wildfires, flooding, and earthquakes. It will also address other natural and manmade hazards that pose a risk to SBUSD’s infrastructure, faculty, staff, and students. It involves planning efforts, policy changes, capital projects, and other activities that can mitigate the impacts of hazards to district facilities.

Protecting The Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD)

This Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP) will be designed to reduce the impacts of future natural and manmade disasters on K–12 schools and administrative facilities within the district.

While it is not possible to completely eliminate disaster risk to SBUSD schools, substantially reducing the negative impacts of future hazards is possible through the ongoing implementation of risk reduction measures, such as the forthcoming update to the HMP.

To qualify for FEMA hazard mitigation grants, school districts must maintain a FEMA-approved Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, ensuring continued eligibility for federal funding to support mitigation efforts. A Benefit-Cost Analysis of BCA of mitigation actions for priority projects will be developed. This type of analysis is required for almost all FEMA hazard mitigation grants and is also a powerful tool for evaluating and prioritizing mitigation projects regardless of the funding source.

Mitigation Planning Benefits

Identifying actions for risk reduction through collaboration with stakeholders and the public
Focusing resources on the greatest risks and vulnerabilities
Building partnerships by involving citizens, organizations, and businesses
Increasing education and awareness of threats and hazards, as well as their risks
Communicating priorities to State and Federal officials
Aligning risk reduction with other community objectives

Update Requirements & DMA 2000

The Robert T. Stafford Act constitutes the statutory authority for most Federal disaster response activities especially as they pertain to FEMA and FEMA programs and created the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). The HMGP assists states and local communities in implementing long term hazard mitigation measures following a major disaster declaration.

On October 30, 2000, the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act was amended by Public Law 106-390 and is referred to as the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA 2000).  As a DMA 2000 requirement, the HMP must be updated every five (5) years to remain in compliance with regulations and Federal mitigation grant conditions. Federal regulations require hazard mitigation plans to include a plan for monitoring, evaluating, and updating the hazard mitigation plan. A current and approved hazard mitigation plan is a prerequisite for jurisdictions wishing to pursue funding under the Robert T. Stafford Act. More at Grant Framework – Mitigate Hazards

Project Funding Information