“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Benjamin Franklin printed those words on Feb. 4, 1735 in his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette. He was worried about fires ravaging Philadelphia and had been impressed with fire-prevention methods in his hometown of Boston.

Two-hundred-and-ninety years later, Franklin’s words still ring true.

So we were pleased to note both our county and our town have followed federal regulations to create “hazard mitigation” plans.

When the Guilderland Town Board unanimously adopted Albany County’s 200-page plan on July 15, Supervisor Peter Barber made a quip that has bite.

“Every five years,” he said, “we have to review the plan to make sure it’s up to date and it’s also what FEMA — if there still is a FEMA — will use to determine whether or not a town is eligible for FEMA support.”

“If there is still a FEMA”: There’s the bite.

FEMA, of course, is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When the remnants of Hurricane Irene ravaged our area in 2011, we wrote extensively about the help that came from FEMA. It was an example of government doing what it should, aiding its citizens in need.

Four days after Donald Trump took office for the second time, he said, “I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away and we pay directly — we pay a percentage to the state. The state should fix it,” The New York Times reported.

Trump does not have the authority to close FEMA, The Times noted; that would require congressional action and typically, legislators from both parties have supported FEMA, knowing that their district or state could need the agency’s help.

But these are not typical times.

Trump inaccurately characterized FEMA’s role, The Times also noted; its role is to support state and local officials only if they are unable to respond to disasters on their own, and only at the request of a governor.

This month, our state has joined 19 others to sue the Trump administration for shutting down FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program without approval from Congress. BRIC, as it is called, is meant to protect places from natural disasters like hurricanes and floods.

“For nearly thirty years, and across five Presidential administrations,” the lawsuit says, “FEMA’s pre-disaster mitigation program has operated on a simple premise: by proactively fortifying our communities against disasters before they strike, rather than just responding afterward, we will reduce injuries, save lives, protect property, and, ultimately, save money that would otherwise be spent on post-disaster costs.”

This is Franklin’s “ounce of prevention” and the suit backs it up with numbers to show the “pound of cure.”

“Studies have shown,” it says, “that each dollar spent on mitigation saves an average of $6 in post-disaster costs, with some investments saving even more. Thus, Congress has consistently funded an all-purpose pre-disaster mitigation program — now called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC — for decades, and explicitly directed FEMA to make mitigation a core part of its mission.”

Those monetary calculations do not even include the biggest loss of all — human life.

So we hope that suit is successful. Meanwhile, the 65 pages we read through on Guilderland’s hazard mitigation, with many pages detailing specific lists of places that could suffer in the event of a natural disaster, highlighted some eye-opening trends.

Guilderland ranked its overall vulnerability to flooding as “high,” noting “flood events occur regularly … causing major damage.”

Guilderland has 515 parcels that have a 1 percent annual chance of flooding — these would suffer in the so-called 100-year storms, which are now coming more frequently. This includes 284 residential parcels, 45 park parcels, 32 agricultural parcels, 21 commercial parcels, 8 community services, 7 public services, and 2 industrial parcels.

Guilderland also ranked its vulnerability to severe storms as high, noting they occur regularly and affect the entire town, damaging both private and public infrastructure as high winds knock down trees. Roadway safety is also a concern because of severe storms.

At the other end of the disaster spectrum — not too much water, but too little — the town feels “moderately prepared” for drought and notes it is particularly concerned about residents who rely on private wells, some of which cannot get water year-round.

The town notes, too, that people watering their lawns in summer has a “huge impact” on demand. We urge residents to grow native plants instead, saving water for more important uses.

The report also notes a drought would affect the water quality of the Watervliet Reservoir, the town’s major source of drinking water, as well as affecting the town’s water and sewer plants.

With an increase in extreme temperatures, the town is most concerned about its old residents (19 percent of its population is over 65), young children (5 percent under age 5), residents with disabilities (8 percent) — and those who cannot afford air-conditioning.

Guilderland says its vulnerability to landslides is moderate and its vulnerability to erosion is high.

The town has just one “high hazard” dam, which creates the Watervliet Reservoir by blocking the Normans Kill, meaning, if the dam were to fail, there may be loss of human life and damage to homes, commercial buildings, roads, railroads, or public utilities, causing “extensive economic loss.”

The report includes a plan for regular inspection and maintenance of the dam as well as an emergency evacuation plan if the dam were to fail.

This meticulous work, following Benjamin Franklin’s directive, is needed and appreciated now more so than ever because, as the report also notes, “Climate change is increasing the risk of multiple hazards.”

It goes on to note that storms and landslides have gotten worse and are becoming more frequent, citing as an example more intense thunderstorms dropping more rain in a shorter period of time. “One result,” the report says, “is that this causes more water to be released from the dam and flow through streams and culverts, causing more erosion.”

While we support our state’s efforts to mitigate climate change, it will take a national and worldwide effort for it to be effective. And our nation is headed in the wrong direction. Our federal government is ignoring proven science at the peril of all — including island nations that are being eradicated — for the greed of a few.

On July 22, The Times broke a story that the Trump administration has “drafted a plan to repeal a fundamental scientific finding that gives the United States government its authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions and fight climate change.”

The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule would rescind the 2009 declaration known as the “endangerment finding,” which scientifically established that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives.

That finding is the foundation of the federal government’s only tool to limit the climate pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industries that is dangerously heating the planet, The Times reported.

On July 23, the International Court of Justice — the United Nations’ highest judicial body — said countries must protect people from the “urgent and existential threat” of climate change.

In its advisory opinion, the court unanimously found that nations “have obligations under international human rights law to respect and ensure the effective enjoyment of human rights by taking necessary measures to protect the climate system and other parts of the environment.”

Faced with the enormity of this worldwide dilemma, what can one town do when our federal government is exacerbating the problem?

“Things are changing so rapidly and things are happening that never happened before …,” said Guilderland’s deputy supervisor, Christine Napierski, at the July 15 town board meeting. “What if there is a tornado in Guilderland, or a mass power outage, or a forest fire that sweeps through us?” she asked. Napierski asked how residents would be notified to evacuate if needed.

Barber responded that residents can sign up for a free Nixle alert system. “You’ll be notified of any threats … the town becomes aware of, whether it’s through the weather bureau or from the county or from the state,” said Barber.

This is, of course, at a time when the federal government has made radical cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration whose National Weather Service forecasts hurricanes, storms, heat waves, and other potentially hazardous weather.

Councilman Jacob Crawford said the town works with the fire chiefs to post alerts as needed on their message boards spread throughout Guilderland and also North Bethlehem.

Napierski recommended that the town increase followers on social media.

Councilwoman Amanda Beedle cited the catastrophic flooding in Texas as well as flooding that day in New Jersey and New York City.

Beedle said she had lived in Altamont all her life and never seen flooding like the village suffered in early June where severe storms washed out roads.

“There’s no real marked evacuation routes. There’s no direction to get out of town. Like people would be chaotic,” she said. “There’s no massive tornado alert system.”

These are legitimate concerns. One lesson to take from the tragic loss of life during the July 4 floods in Texas hill country is that people in remote areas were not alerted to the danger in time.

We urge Albany County to work with its municipalities including Guilderland, but especially in the Helderberg Hilltowns, which suffered so with Irene and where internet communication is often spotty, to come up with a workable system to inform residents of impending dangers.

Unfortunately, we live in a time and place where we can no longer count on our federal government to do the right thing in mitigating climate change or even in warning us of weather disasters. We need to count on our local government to fill this need.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.