Municipalities learn of potential for Saline disasters
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[A small crowd heard a presentation on Saline County's Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan led by Jonathan Remo of Southern Illinois University at Southeastern Illinois College Tuesday night.
The meeting was the third in a series of five meetings organized by SIU-Carbondale and hosted by the Saline County Emergency Management Agency. The intent was to hear public input on a draft of the county's multi-hazard plan, but there was little input provided during the meeting.
Jim Brown of Brown and Roberts Engineering brought up though Harrisburg Medical Center and Ferrell Hospital were included in the plan Primary Care -- a large clinic of several doctors -- was not.
Saline County EMA Coordinator Allan Ninness said the draft provided was an early draft and there is much not included. He asked all the city and village representatives to get out the red pens and make additions or corrections.
Remo said the university is providing plans for more than 30 Illinois counties with the goal of identifying and prioritizing mitigation strategies for tornados, earthquakes, hazardous materials spills, floods and strong thunderstorms.
The goal is for each municipality in the county to adopt the plan and become eligible for Federal Emergency Management Agency mitigation programs, such as buyouts of property within the floodplain.
Remo began by discussing tornados. The Tri-State Tornado in 1925 caused incredible damage to Murphysboro, West Frankfort and killed half the residents of Gorham, Remo said.
The April of 2002 Galatia tornado was the most recent to cause significant damage in Saline County. Remo said using the historical path of an F-4 tornado from Galatia to Raleigh as a guide a tornado has the potential of damaging 53 buildings at a cost of over $2.4 million in that area.
Should a tornado take a path from Stonefort to Eldorado damage could expect to be done to 1,733 buildings with estimated losses of $72.1 million. In that path are 13 critical facilities that include hospitals, nursing homes, schools, fire departments and law enforcement centers.
On earthquakes Remo said the Cottage Grove Fault is of greatest concern to Saline County. He said there is a 7- to 10-percent change of a magnitude 8 on the Mercali scale earthquake in the next 50 years. That size of earthquake is the equivalent of the 1811 and 1812 earthquakes that caused violent ground cracking, sand blows and an uplift in Lake County, Remo said. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates a probability of a moderate 5.5 earthquake occurring in Saline County within the next 500 years at 10 percent, Remo said.
"To have an extreme earthquake here in Saline County is highly improbable, but to have a moderate earthquake is much more probable," Remo said.
He said it could be expected strong earthquakes would cause structural damage to brick buildings and cause liquifaction and sand volcanoes. He said most destructive would not be the disturbance on the ground, but the fires that would ensue from broken gas lines. Remo predicted a 5.5 earthquake within 30 miles of Harrisburg could cause $179 million in damage and most structural damage would be done to brick structures.
Some towns have codes requiring water heaters be braced to prepare for such disasters and though none in Illinois require such measures, they can save greater problems for residents and municipalities.
In 2008 an earthquake near Mount Carmel caused $10 million worth of damage over a wide area, Remo said.
Remo asked leaders of municipalities to encourage people put together survival kits with food and sanitation supplies.
Harrisburg Mayor Eric Gregg pressed Remo on a timeline for the county to adopt the plan. The city hopes to oversee the buy out of properties in the floodplain through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and move ahead with the raising of Missouri Street to ensure a route is available to reach Harrisburg Medical Center. Funding for both projects are affected by the completion of the multi-hazard mitigation plan.
"It's a huge concern of ours. There is a huge pool of money that could be at stake," Gregg said.
Remo said the plan could be ready to adopt within three months after holding two additional meetings.
"We can move this as fast as you guys want to move along," Remo said.
Alene Carr of Southeastern Regional Planning and Development Commission -- one of the agencies involved in developing the plan -- asked for more participation in the next two meetings by having representatives from Galatia, Stonefort, area libraries and area schools attend.
"If they don't participate in the next meetings, they can't participate in mitigation," Beth Ellison of SIU said.
Remo said in the next meeting, planned 6:30 p.m. Feb. 21 at SIC's D Building -- also known as the Gregg Building -- he hopes to hear two mitigation strategies for each jurisdiction.
The draft of the Saline County Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan is available at the Web site www.pdmplanning.com. To reach the document enter illinois_PDM as the user name and "illini" as the password, go to "Shared Documents," to "Southern Illinois PDMs" to "Saline County" and to "Meeting 3." The mitigation plan is also available for download at the link in the right column.
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DeNeal receives e-mail at bdeneal@yourclearwave.com.</li>
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