Jacksonville Posts Draft Morgan County Hazard Mitigation Plan for Public Review

The July 2024 derecho that swept central Illinois with winds topping 80 mph left Morgan County to clear fallen trees and restore power for days, part of a storm system severe enough to prompt a federal disaster declaration for the state. The draft update to the Morgan County Multi-Jurisdictional Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan that the City of Jacksonville posted to its website on March 30 is the document that determines whether communities here qualify for federal money to reduce that kind of damage before the next storm arrives.

The plan covers eight jurisdictions: Morgan County, Jacksonville, South Jacksonville, Meredosia, Chapin, Franklin, Murrayville and Woodson. For residents in those communities, the draft translates into five categories of concrete action. The Illinois River flood corridor, particularly around Meredosia, is targeted for drainage improvements and floodproofing. Critical facilities, including emergency services buildings and community shelters, are identified for backup power installations so that a grid outage from a derecho or ice storm does not disable the county's emergency response. Outdoor sirens and alert networks appear in the draft as priorities for upgrade and expansion. A countywide tree-trim program and building retrofits round out the project list, addressing the structural and infrastructure vulnerabilities that high-wind events expose across the region.

Funding for those projects would flow primarily through FEMA hazard mitigation grants, administered by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency with a required local cost-share match. A current, FEMA-approved plan is the legal prerequisite for accessing those dollars. Without an adopted update, Morgan County and each participating village forfeits that eligibility entirely.

The Jacksonville/Morgan County Office of Emergency Management, municipal governments, county planners and a consultant team produced the draft, with FEMA guidance and Illinois mitigation program criteria shaping the project priorities. Morgan County has coordinated mitigation planning with neighboring Scott County in past cycles, and the current update continues that regional approach. Multi-jurisdictional plans must be refreshed every five years to preserve federal funding eligibility.

Jacksonville released the draft following public meetings held this spring, with the March 30 posting creating the permanent online record of those sessions alongside a public-forum summary handout.

The sections that most directly determine which capital improvements get funded in individual communities are the prioritized project list, the flood-hazard maps and the critical-facility inventory. Residents can read the full draft and the forum handout on the City of Jacksonville's website and submit written comments to the city or the Morgan County OEM. Local boards will consider the plan for formal adoption after public review closes, a step that secures the county's access to the next wave of federal mitigation funding before the storm season advances.