Saline agencies deliver disaster wish list
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Saline County Disaster Mitigation Plan is one step closer to completion with the fourth of five meetings conducted Tuesday.
Tuesday's meeting -- held by Southeastern Illinois Regional Planning and Development Commission and disaster plan developers at Southern Illinois University and The Polis Center of Indiana University -- was to record methods to mitigate disasters in the communities of Saline County.
"This is for you. This is your time to put your hand on the mitigation plan," Beth Ellison of SIU said.
"Are there streets that need to be raised? Are there houses that need to be bought out?"
Ellison asked the crowd representing the municipalities not to consider money an issue when considering issues that might result in less costly disaster.
Severe thunderstorm
The group began talking about severe thunderstorm needs.
A Carrier Mills representative began the discussion by saying the village's municipal building is in desperate need of a generator when used as a shelter for storms and a winter warming shelter.
Galatia Village employee Chad Lambert said Galatia's municipal building also needs a generator and Eldorado Mayor Rocky James said Eldorado needs at least two.
"Eldorado needs one for the police station. The one they have is in bad shape and the city hall doesn't have one at all," James said.
A representative of Egyptian Health Department said the agency needs a generator for the storage of vaccines.
James said Eldorado needs an updated storm siren. Carrier Mills has updated its storm siren, but has only one.
Ellison asked about hardening of infrastructure.
Buildings in need of hardening mentioned are the Egyptian Health Department which is a pole barn, Saline County Highway Department, Eldorado Fire Station and the Galatia municipal building.
The group talked about possibilities of providing incentives to people to purchase weather radios.
Ellison asked about ordinances regarding the tying down of mobile homes. Saline County Emergency Management Agency Coordinator Alan Ninness said some municipalities have such ordinances and some don't, but the challenge is inspection and enforcement.
Ninness said one challenge faced by the county is finding storm shelters that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
"The problem is a lot of churches we've used in the past are not covered by ADA," Ninness said.
He said the city of Los Angeles was recently sued for using a shelter that was not ADA compliant.
Ninness also said there is a need for a county-owned site for people to haul away storm debris. The municipalities have such sites, but there is none for those in outlying areas.
Winter storm
In the area of winter storms, Saline County Highway Superintendent Jeff Jones said there is a need for more salt storage facilities at the county highway department. There is also a need for satellite offices for storage of equipment and materials in the case the department employees cannot reach the current yard in Harrisburg.
Jones would also like to see each employee have a portable radio. The vehicles have radios and the employees have cell phones, but in the case of a tower failure they could communicate with portable radios.
Lambert said he would like to have a repeater tower in Galatia to ensure communication with emergency crews.
Earthquakes
Ellison asked about evacuation routes in the case of a catastrophic earthquake.
Ninness said there is no evacuation route and he believes an evacuation order would not be heeded. Ellison pressed Ninness on evacuation plans for the disabled and those with special needs and Ninness said there is none.
"The best thing I see right now is to identify what the special needs are and develop strategies to deal with those special needs," Ninness said.
Lambert said he would like to see all water lines in Galatia replaced with those that can withstand earthquakes and mine subsidence.
Rick Deadmond, superintendent of Saline Valley Conservation District, said the district is fortunate in that most all of its lines are PVC and not cast iron so they should withstand earthquakes and subsidence. An issue of the district is keeping its 7 million gallons of stored water available. He said the district has adequate generators for pumping water, but he remembers one ice storm in which the ice was so heavy and the terrain so unnavigable crews could not get a generator to the tank.
Harrisburg City Commissioner Ron Fearheiley said stored water is key to providing for everyone during a disaster.
"You can't store enough water," Fearheiley said.
"You hate to come to a point where you have to let a house burn, but you may have to save the elderly and infirm."
Flooding
Harrisburg Water Department Lead Foreman Bobby Brown said he would like to have the levees rip-rapped and built up. During some floods, the pumps that pump water from Harrisburg to outside the levees had to be shut off because of the large amount of water building up outside the levee. During those times, the wind was blowing the floodwater and it was eating away at the exterior of the levees.
Ninness said there are roads in the county that should be elevated so areas are not blocked by floodwater. He also suggested swing gates.
Jones said swing gates that could be remotely monitored to block flooded roads to traffic would save time spent setting up signage. Gates would keep people from going around the signs, possibly tying up sheriffs deputies if their vehicles get swamped. Such gates could be solar powered, someone mentioned.
Carrier Mills and Eldorado need ditch maintenance.
Ninness said there is a need to map drainages to determine if ditches belong to a taxing body, another jurisdiction or if any agency is responsible for their maintenance.
The groups filled out forms noting the needs of municipalities and agencies and Ellison said SIU and The Polis Center would compile those and return them for corrections during the fifth meeting which will be in about a month.
Illinois Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will take up to six months to approve the plan.
Ellison also said she understands there has been a sense of urgency about the plan because there is a belief that FEMA buyouts of flooded properties are dependent on the plan's completion.
She said this is not true.
"This is not holding up mitigation buyouts," she said.
Officials of Harrisburg are hoping to broker buyouts between FEMA and property owners and have been told this cannot happen until the Saline County Disaster Mitigation Plan has been adopted.