MORGAN COUNTY Multi-Jurisdictional Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan
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MORGAN COUNTY Multi-Jurisdictional Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan PARTICIPANTS Chapin, Village of Morgan County Franklin, Village of Murrayville, Village of Jacksonville, City of South Jacksonville, Village of Meredosia, Village of Woodson, Village of March 2014 The five year update of this Plan must be completed on or before May 12, 2019. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Developing the first Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan for Morgan County and the participating municipalities involved input from many people. All of these contributions have helped to make this Plan the definitive source of information on natural hazards, their impacts, and the various options to eliminate or reduce these impacts on current and future generations. Information from government sources has been supplemented by photographs and weather data from personal collections. Morgan County and Scott County share many commonalities. In 1823 Morgan County was organized from part of Greene County and its original boundaries included Scott and Cass Counties. Scott County was later formed from part of Morgan County in 1839. Both Counties are bordered by the Illinois River on the west. The spirit of cooperation and sharing forged between these two counties resulted in both working together throughout this planning process. The Morgan & Scott Counties Multi-Jurisdictional Natural Hazards Mitigation Planning Committee was organized to represent the various jurisdictions and interests in both counties. Although they worked together by participating in the same planning meetings and sharing discussions on similar topics, each County developed separate, independent Plans. Each Plan reflects the differences in severe weather history and specific approaches to reducing potential impacts. Identifying, verifying, and gathering information about severe weather events involves research into various files and discussions with individuals. Gaps exist in weather records, especially for severe winter storms and floods. Verifying the date, time, and location of a severe weather event can involve multiple steps and this task is further complicated by the fact that information about property damages is often lacking. Chris Miller at the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Lincoln responded to numerous requests by providing useful information that was able to fill in many of the gaps. Several committee members were also able to identify critical facilities and infrastructure damaged by natural hazard events and provide property damage amounts that were unavailable through conventional records. These efforts helped to personalize the Plan and greatly enhanced its value to future users. Photographs depicting storms and storm damages are often difficult to find. Beth Hopkins and Bob Fitzsimmons (Jacksonville/Morgan County ESDA), Steve Turner (Turner Insurance) and Richard Evans (South Jacksonville Police Department) were able to provide photographs depicting the severity associated with severe storms that are hard to capture with words. This Plan is the first attempt to provide a single compendium of knowledge on severe weather in Morgan County. As this Plan is updated, we hope that future generations will continue to build on this document with more information and photographs. Morgan County Multi-Jurisdictional Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan MORGAN COUNTY MULTI-JURISDICTIONAL NATURAL HAZARDS MITIGATION PLAN MORGAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 PARTICIPATING JURISDICTIONS ................................................................................ 1-2 1.2 DEMOGRAPHICS ....................................................................................................... 1-2 1.3 LAND USE AND DEVELOPMENT TRENDS .................................................................. 1-5 2.0 PLANNING PROCESS 2.1 PLANNING COMMITTEE ............................................................................................ 2-2 2.2 PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT ............................................................................................. 2-5 2.3 PARTICIPATION OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERESTED PARTIES ..................................... 2-8 2.4 INCORPORATING EXISTING PLANNING DOCUMENTS ................................................ 2-9 3.0 RISK ASSESSMENT 3.1 SEVERE STORMS (THUNDERSTORMS, HAIL, LIGHTNING & HEAVY RAIN) ................ 3-2 3.2 SEVERE WINTER STORMS (SNOW, ICE & EXTREME COLD) .................................... 3-38 3.3 FLOODS .................................................................................................................. 3-58 3.4 TORNADOES ........................................................................................................... 3-92 3.5 EXTREME HEAT .................................................................................................... 3-118 3.6 DROUGHT ............................................................................................................. 3-128 3.7 EARTHQUAKES ..................................................................................................... 3-137 3.8 DAMS ................................................................................................................... 3-147 3.9 LEVEES ................................................................................................................. 3-154 4.0 MITIGATION STRATEGY 4.1 HAZARD MITIGATION GOALS ................................................................................... 4-1 4.2 IDENTIFYING, ANALYZING & PRIORITIZING MITIGATION ACTIONS .......................... 4-2 4.2.1 Identification and Analysis ....................................................................... 4-2 4.2.2 Prioritization .............................................................................................. 4-3 4.3 IMPLEMENTING MITIGATION ACTIONS ..................................................................... 4-4 4.4 MITIGATION STRATEGY RESULTS ............................................................................ 4-4 5.0 RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................. 5-1 March 2014 Table of Contents i Morgan County Multi-Jurisdictional Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan 6.0 PLAN MAINTENANCE 6.1 MONITORING, EVALUATING & UPDATING THE PLAN ............................................... 6-1 6.1.1 Monitoring and Evaluating the Plan ......................................................... 6-1 6.1.2 Updating the Plan ...................................................................................... 6-2 6.2 INCORPORATING THE MITIGATION STRATEGY INTO EXISTING ................................. 6-3 PLANNING MECHANISMS 6.3 CONTINUED PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT ......................................................................... 6-3 7.0 PLAN ADOPTION 7.1 PLAN ADOPTION PROCESS ........................................................................................ 7-1 8.0 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 8-1 APPENDICES County Resolution Authorizing the Development of the Plan ...................................... Appendix A Planning Committee Meeting Attendance Sheets .......................................................... Appendix B Planning Committee Meeting Minutes .......................................................................... Appendix C Citizen Questionnaire..................................................................................................... Appendix D Frequently Asked Questions Fact Sheet ........................................................................ Appendix E Print Media Serving Morgan & Scott Counties and News Articles ...............................Appendix F Public Forum – Planning Process Handout ................................................................... Appendix G Public Forum – Plan Comment Sheet ............................................................................ Appendix H Hazard Mitigation Planning Letter Sent to Adjacent Counties ...................................... Appendix I Hazard Event Photographs .............................................................................................. Appendix J Floodplain Maps for NFIP-Participating Municipalities ............................................... Appendix K Plan Adoption Resolutions ............................................................................................ Appendix L LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Federal Disaster Declarations for Morgan County ................................................. 1-1 Figure 2 Participating Jurisdictions Represented in the Plan ................................................ 1-2 Figure 3 Location Map .......................................................................................................... 1-3 Figure 4 Demographic Data by Participating Jurisdiction .................................................... 1-4 Figure 5 Description of Planning Process ............................................................................. 2-1 Figure 6 Morgan & Scott Counties Planning Committee Member Attendance Record ....... 2-3 Figure 7 Existing Planning Documents by Participating Jurisdiction ................................... 2-9 Figure 8 Wind Speed Conversions ........................................................................................ 3-3 Figure 9 Hail Size Descriptions............................................................................................