Which Pennsylvania Hazard Mitigation Plans Expire Next? The 2026–⁠2028 Calendar

Pennsylvania counties start their hazard mitigation plan updates early, and FEMA's records show it. Of the 22 county plans that have expired or will expire by the end of 2028, 19 had an update in progress, in FEMA review or approved and awaiting adoption on November 2, 2026, according to FEMA's plan records. Three did not: Franklin, Elk and Berks counties, whose plans expire in October and November 2028 and cover 105 jurisdictions and about 600,000 people.

The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency's 2025 planning guide runs on a longer clock than FEMA's minimum: apply for FEMA funding 36 months before a plan expires, because the award "normally takes 12 months," and hold the public kickoff meeting 24 months before. For those three counties, the kickoff date falls this fall.

If your county plan expires in late 2028, the update should be funded and the planning team assembled now. The calendar below lists every Pennsylvania county plan expiring through 2028, with PEMA's funding and kickoff dates and how far each update has got.

We track these dates because we built the tool that shows them. CF Labs, Council Fire's software studio, turned FEMA's daily plan records into a public hazard mitigation plan tracker that covers every state. Council Fire, a certified B Corp since 2010, was an implementation and stakeholder engagement partner for Phase I of the Annapolis Maritime Resilience Initiative, which included 18 months of community engagement on its own, and we published the same calendar for Maryland, where nine plans are further behind.

Why does a county plan's expiration date matter in Pennsylvania?

Because federal mitigation money follows it. Under 44 CFR 201.6, a local government needs a FEMA-approved hazard mitigation plan to receive FEMA mitigation project grants, and plans must be updated and resubmitted every five years.

Pennsylvania adds a twist that raises the stakes. FEMA requires plans to be adopted by the level of government with land use authority, which in Pennsylvania means its 2,560 municipalities, so counties write multi-jurisdictional plans and municipalities adopt them, PEMA's guide explains. Since 2024, FEMA has also required any organization seeking mitigation funding to participate in and adopt its county's plan, which the guide says reaches the state's 1,860 municipal authorities and 500-plus school districts. A water authority that skips the county update can't apply later.

That eligibility is worth real money now:

• Flood Mitigation Assistance. FEMA's fiscal 2026 round offers up to $400 million, with state applications due February 26, 2027. Pennsylvania's subapplications go through PEMA, which sets its own earlier deadline.
• BRIC. FEMA's $1 billion fiscal 2024–25 round closed July 23, 2026 and is still under review, with no new round announced.
• The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. It opens only after a major disaster declaration, and it requires an approved plan too.

The return on that money is well documented: the National Institute of Building Sciences found that federal mitigation grants save $6 in future disaster costs for every $1 spent.

Which Pennsylvania plans expire next?

Twenty-one county plans expire by the end of 2028, and one has already lapsed. The number after each county is how many jurisdictions its plan covers. "Apply for funding by" is 36 months before expiration and "Kick off by" is 24 months before, following PEMA's suggested schedule. "Update on record" is the furthest stage FEMA's records show for the county's next plan.

Who this is for: county emergency management coordinators and planners, and the municipal managers, authority directors and school district officials who will have to adopt the next plan. To look up a single municipality, open our tracker and choose Pennsylvania.

Three counties haven't started. What should they do now?

Franklin, Elk and Berks counties' plans expire on October 23, October 31 and November 5, 2028. PEMA's guide would have had them apply for FEMA funding in the fall of 2025 and hold their kickoff meetings this fall, and FEMA's records show no update for any of them. That doesn't prove nothing is happening: FEMA's records depend on what the state reports, and a county may be scoping the work now. It does mean the easy schedule is gone.

Two years is still enough if the steps start now and overlap:

1. Apply for funding and assemble the team at once. PEMA routes FEMA's mitigation funding through its E-grants system and says the award takes about 12 months, so build the planning team and gather the last plan's review comments while the application is pending.
2. Invite every adopter early. Berks County's plan covers 72 jurisdictions. Add the authorities and school districts that will want mitigation funding, since they now have to participate to qualify.
3. Book the reviews. PEMA asks for the final plan at least 90 days before expiration, and FEMA needs at least 45 days of its own. Every municipality then has to adopt.
4. Protect the public meetings. PEMA's schedule calls for a public kickoff, a public risk assessment review and a public draft with at least 30 days for comment. Those can't be compressed without weakening the plan.

Who this is for: emergency management staff in Franklin, Elk and Berks counties, and any county whose plan expires within three years without an update under way.

What do Beaver and Adams counties show about timing?

They show how a gap opens even when a county is working on the update. Beaver County's plan expires November 7, 2026, and its update is in FEMA review rather than approved, so its 48 jurisdictions may spend weeks or months between plans. Adams County's plan lapsed on December 6, 2025, and its update was still in FEMA review on November 2, 2026. Until FEMA approves it and the municipalities adopt it, Adams County's 34 jurisdictions can't receive FEMA mitigation project grants.

The fix is the one PEMA's schedule builds in: submit early enough that state review, FEMA's review and every adoption vote fit before the old plan runs out. Our guide to hazard mitigation plan implementation covers what to do with the plan's actions once it's approved.

Who this is for: counties with plans expiring in 2027, all eight of which have updates in progress, and the municipalities waiting to adopt them.

What does PEMA's update schedule look like?

PEMA's suggested schedule, counted back from expiration, runs longer than FEMA's 18-month minimum:

Who this is for: counties with plans expiring in 2029 and 2030, which are in the funding and team-building years now.

How do you pay for the update and the projects in it?

FEMA's mitigation programs pay for planning as well as projects, applied for through PEMA. Pennsylvania adds a source of its own: the Commonwealth Financing Authority's Flood Mitigation Program, funded under Act 13 of 2012, grants up to $500,000 for flood mitigation projects of $50,000 or more, with a 15% match, according to its guidelines. Its last application window closed May 31, 2026.

Before applying for anything, our free funding readiness scorecard flags the hard stops, including an expired plan, and our guides cover writing an RFP for a hazard mitigation plan update and applying for a FEMA mitigation grant.

How we built this calendar

The dates come from FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Plan Statuses dataset (OpenFEMA, version 1), retrieved November 2, 2026. We group jurisdictions by the county plan they share, take each plan's expiration date from FEMA's records, and count back 36 and 24 months following PEMA's 2025 guide. "Update on record" is the furthest stage FEMA lists for each county's next plan (in progress, in review, or approved and pending adoption); it depends on what the state reports, so a county can be further along than the record shows.

A few municipalities sit outside their county's plan: one Bucks County borough remains on the county's earlier plan, which expired October 3, 2026. Population figures are FEMA's.

This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

Related Resources

Plan status and the update

• Hazard mitigation plan tracker: every U.S. jurisdiction's plan status from FEMA's data.
• The Maryland calendar: the same analysis for Maryland, where nine 2028 plans have no update on record.
• The Delaware calendar: Delaware, where the next deadline is adoption.
• The Virginia calendar: Virginia, where planning districts write the plans region by region.
• How to write an RFP for a hazard mitigation plan update: scope, budget and evaluation.
• Hazard mitigation plan implementation: from action table to funded projects.

Funding

• How to apply for a FEMA mitigation grant: outside help with the application.
• Resilience funding readiness scorecard: 18 questions, with the hard stops flagged.
• Navigating federal climate funding in 2026: a playbook for municipalities.
• Funding resilience without federal grants: sources for the years between grants.

Delivering the plan

• How to prioritize climate resilience projects: which actions to fund first.
• How to build resilience into your capital improvement plan: getting projects into the budget.
• How to choose climate resilience planning software: tools for the plan and what follows it.
• Aptation: the resilience planning and delivery platform CF Labs built.

Bring us your expiration date

Tell us your county plan's expiration date and where the update stands. We'll map PEMA's schedule back from that date, show which programs your projects could compete for and when, and say what belongs in the scope. Talk to us on our contact page and choose Climate resilience.

About the Author

George Chmael II is Council Fire's Founder & CEO. He has led the firm since its founding and through its B Corp certification in 2010. Council Fire's climate resilience practice works with cities, counties, ports and authorities on planning, funding and delivery, and CF Labs builds the software that holds that work together.

Written by

George Chmael II

Founder & CEO

Corporate lawyer turned social entrepreneur, guiding organizations toward three bottom lines for 25+ years.

Full bio →All 89 articles by George →

From the library

• Topic hubFunding Climate Resilience→
• RFP guideHow to Write an RFP for a Resilience Funding Strategy→
• County profilesMaryland Climate Risk by County→

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