In 2014 and 2015, Sangamon County OEM participated on a task force with numerous of our communities, organized by the Springfield Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission (SSCRPC) to prepare the 2015 Sangamon County Multi-jurisdictional Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan. The mission of the task force was to reduce the impact of natural hazards on citizens, infrastructure, private property, and critical facilities through a combined effort of communities, institutions, and citizenry to develop a mitigation plan that will be adopted and implemented by each participating community.
Preparation of the mitigation plan was financed through a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Planning Grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and by Sangamon County. After a thorough review by FEMA, it was adopted in January 2017.
The mitigation plan addresses several natural hazards: tornados, floods, winter storms, thunderstorms/lightning, earthquakes, extreme heat, dam failure, drought, and mine subsidence. For each community, the history and likelihood of future occurrence of each hazard have been examined and compared against each community’s vulnerabilities - the overall built environment and future development areas, paying particular attention to critical facilities in each community.
Communities look to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens. Related to natural hazard events this has traditionally meant responding to the needs of the community after an event occurs. Mitigation looks to reduce the need for response by permanently removing people and structures from harm’s way when a known area of impact can be identified (such as a floodplain) or significantly reducing the impact from a known risk (such as a tornado). The mitigation plan provides an assessment of the risks to Sangamon County from natural hazard events and a comprehensive range of mitigation projects to lessen the impact of these hazards on our communities. With the availability of mitigation grant funding from the Federal Government, communities have the opportunity to implement mitigation projects that would not otherwise be financially possible. The preparation of this mitigation plan follows the guidelines to make participating communities eligible to apply for mitigation grant funding.
SSCRPC maintains a webpage on the mitigation plan at www.sangamonil.gov/NHMP.