A public involvement strategy developed for the FEMA Midwest Hazard Mitigation Program

ABSTRACT

From June through August 1993, small towns in the Midwest along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers withnessed the worst flooding in their history. Many hydrologists consider the 1993 flood to be greater than a 100-year floodplain and sustained substantial flood damage. Woodward-Clyde Federal Services was selected to assist the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in conducting environmental assessments (EA) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in a number of Illinois communities that had been ravaged by the flood. The communities were Grafton, Valmeyer, Keithsburg, Evansville, Hardin, Fults, Monroe County (unincorporated), and Kaskaskia Island, and each had suffered devastating losses of property. Almost 90