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Hazard Mitigation Planning

In recent years natural disasters like flooding and earthquakes have rocked our country. Currently, The novel corona virus has caused a worldwide catastrophic incident. In our own community we have experienced massive ice and snow storms, hazardous material threats on our highways, powerful electrical storms, tornadoes, and a broken gas pipeline, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic. These disasters affect our economy and our quality of life. They are costly, disruptive, and they threaten human life as well as our infrastructure and economy. Too often, we wait to ask what could have been done to avoid, or lessen the impact of a disaster. FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) and the MSP-EMHSD (the Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division of the Michigan State Police) have been partnering to encourage communities to plan for disasters, and to develop and implement mitigation strategies designed to reduce the severity of the disaster caused by hazards. They have provided grant funding for the preparation of the current Jackson County Hazard Mitigation Plan and provide incentives to community incentives, through FEMA grant programs for hazard mitigation, to reduce the potential threat to life and property damage caused by natural hazards. Jackson County recently received a new grant to update that plan. This webpage was established to inform stakeholders and interested members of the general public about hazard mitigation planning and the progress made on the plan update.

Hazard Mitigation Plan Update

The updated Jackson County Hazard Mitigation Plan will a countywide community plan that anticipates a wide variety of natural, technological, and human-related hazards and identifies actions and activities to implement before disasters happen that will minimize damage to infrastructure and property as well as harm to our citizens. Hazard mitigation planning does not include emergency preparedness, nor does it include planning for emergency responses. Emergency preparedness and the planning for emergency responses are the responsibility of local law enforcement agencies, including in particular the Office of Emergency Management (Jackson County Office of the Sheriff) and the Jackson County Health Department. Hazard Mitigation Plans have a pre-disaster focus, to develop strategies and actions to implement prior to the occurrence of disaster to minimize the negative impacts associated with these disasters. Hazard mitigation planning is comprehensive, addressing multiple hazards. Plans are implementation-oriented and locally relevant. They contain both short and long-range action strategies.

More to Come!

This webpage will be updated and added to in the near future. The current Hazard Mitigation Plan was completed in July of 2022 and can be found below. Updated mapping identifying past disasters and the people, institutions, resources, and infrastructure that will be affected by future disasters. In the meantime, examples of mapping created for the current plan are located to the right.

Hazard Mitigation
Mapping Examples

Jackson County Hazard Mitigation Plan Elements and Appendices

The  current version of the Jackson County Hazard Mitigation Plan is posted here.

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