ODU Hazard Mitigation Plan Update

Draft Plan Available for Review

The Draft 2026 ODU Hazard Mitigation Plan assesses the natural, human-caused, and technological hazards, risks, and vulnerabilities inherent to ODU. The draft plan, a planned special district addendum to the 2022 Hampton Roads Hazard Mitigation Plan, was developed by the 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Advisory Board for Hazard Mitigation in collaboration with Salter’s Creek Consulting, Inc. The plan identifies and prioritizes mitigation strategies for protecting people and property from potential harm or loss.

This plan is currently open for public comment. Please email Jared Hoernig, ODU Director of Emergency Management, at jhoernig@odu.edu with any comments or questions related to the draft plan.

Open House

The ODU Hazard Mitigation Plan Open House will be held Tuesday, April 21 from 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. in Webb Center’s North Mall on the main campus. Please stop by. You can learn more about the planning process, take a look at the mitigation actions the 91¶ÌÊÓƵ anticipates for the next five years, and provide us your feedback. 

Download the Draft ODU Hazard Mitigation Plan Addendum to the regional plan.

Learn more about the Open House event.

Project Background

Purpose and Need

Since 2007, ODU Emergency Management has sought opportunities and funding to update the university’s existing hazard mitigation plan in order to attain eligibility for various grant programs and to carefully develop and prioritize mitigation activities on campus.  Simultaneously, ODU has expanded its footprint in Hampton Roads with campuses in Suffolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Hampton, and the Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in Norfolk.  ODU recognizes that the need is urgent for an up-to-date hazard mitigation plan that outlines a mitigation strategy tailored to the university’s vulnerabilities across all campuses, and identified the Special District addendum to the regional plan as a way to cost effectively fulfill this need in accordance with FEMA guidance.

Scope

ODU Emergency Management has contracted with Salter’s Creek Consulting, Inc. to execute an abbreviated mitigation planning process and develop a brief written addendum to the 2022 Hampton Roads Hazard Mitigation Plan.  The addendum will reference existing vulnerability assessments and highlight where ODU vulnerabilities may differ from the overall region.  The addendum to the Hampton Roads plan will include summary information on all phases of the planning process, and focus on the prioritized mitigation strategies to be appended to the region’s plan.  The addendum is expected to be reviewed by VDEM and FEMA prior to the ODU Board of Visitors adoption.

Project Schedule

The project began in September 2025 and is expected to take approximately nine (9) months to complete. Keeping to this timeline will allow ODU to maintain their regular required emergency operations planning cadence as required by the Code of Virginia, including adding new hazard mitigation content into their 2026 Crisis and Emergency Management Plan, which will go in front of the ODU Board of Visitors for quadrennial adoption in late 2026. The first phase of the process involved a committee meeting to review components of the regional plan (October), and a workshop to formulate mitigation actions for the future (November). The second phase now underway involves obtaining feedback on the mitigation actions from various stakeholders and 91¶ÌÊÓƵ and Federal reviewers.

Helpful Links

How to Participate and Provide Input

Please reach out to Jared Hoernig, ODU Director of Emergency Management, who will add your name to the appropriate notification list. Jared can be reached by telephone at 757-683-5116 or by email at jhoernig@odu.edu.