Flood Alliance
In 2013, Senator Rezin helped establish the Illinois Valley Flood Resiliency Alliance (IVFRA). The IVFRA brings communities, local governments, and emergency personnel together to help them prepare for extreme weather events, especially floods, through education, communication, and the purchasing of flood protection materials. The IVFRA includes LaSalle, Grundy, Bureau, and Putnam counties. The IVFRA has also developed a resiliency plan for the region. The IVFRA has also helped secure grant funding for communities to help decrease flood losses.
Did you know?
- The 38th Senate District has about 130 miles worth of river frontage, one of the most in the state.
- Ottawa alone is the watershed for 12,000 square miles.
- The state of Illinois has the largest collection of inland bodies of water and rivers in the continental United States.
- 12% percent of surface in Illinois is mapped as a flood plain.
More on the IVFRA:
The Illinois Valley Flood Resiliency Alliance (IVFRA) was formed in as a united local effort to encourage all area communities to prepare regionally to mitigate flooding and to build resiliency into their long term plans. After several meetings and a comprehensive “Flood Fighting School,” the region is in the process of developing a Regional Flood Response Plan.
This broad public-private alliance is in early stages of development. It will grow to provide a way to unify all parts of the region around the goal of resilience. The alliance and its partners can assess a community’s vulnerability, educate and communicate about risk, and evaluate and expand the regions capacity to handle risk.
The long-term regional flood management plan will address local needs, articulate local and regional flood management priorities, and establish the common vision of regional partners. Among the areas of focus, will be the protection of critical facilities in the region. Execution of this project will offset potential damages that could easily total tens of millions of dollars. Replacing one wastewater treatment plant alone is a ten million dollar cost.
The IVFRA was created with the goal of inspiring communities to work together to manage the floodplain, to hold each other accountable, and to mitigate and reduce flood damage. It will grow to improve resilience in anticipation of many types of disasters. Our goal is to develop mitigation activities that will meet the needs of the region but that will not adversely impact other communities. The Alliance is also a significant catalyst for improving the resiliency of a community’s critical infrastructure and systems – such as power, water and sewer systems, health care services, schools, and transportation systems that are dispersed across public and private sectors.
The focus of this in the context of the National Disaster Resilience Competition will be to complete projects in the region that will build resiliency in the communities – helping to withstand future disasters. These projects have been identified and prioritized by the individual communities and the alliance. We want to work with the National Disaster Resilience Program via the State of Illinois to address three (3) categories of projects that will have real results for the region.
The project categories include housing, infrastructure and environmental degradation. Specific projects will be listed for communities in each target area county.