DURANT, Okla. (KTEN) — The Durant City Council voted Tuesday to adopt the updated Bryan County hazard mitigation plan.

Hazard mitigation plans help identify potential natural disasters and severe weather events that could cause the most damage, injuries, and deaths in a region. The Federal Emergency Management Agency requires local governments to update these plans every five years.

Bryan County's new plan assesses the most vulnerable areas and lays out a course of action to protect people and infrastructure from damage.

"Outlined in our hazard mitigation plan, we came up with several disasters or weather events that impact our area," said Bryan County Emergency Management Director Cody Allen. "We have hail, high wind, tornadoes..."

With a plan in place, the city is now eligible to apply for funding from FEMA that it can use to prepare for disasters,

"We bought all the homes in the flood plain area along the Mineral Bayou several years back and turned it into park land, because it was a repetitive flood area," said Durant Emergency Management director Kenneth Eppler.

He adds that one of the city's priorities with the next round of funding is controlling flooding along Main Street during heavy rainstorms. Durant's new Doppler radar will also help alert public safety officials about tornadoes that had previously been too close to the ground to be detected.