Henry County updates its disaster mitigation plan

MT. PLEASANT - The Henry County Board of Supervisors approved a disaster mitigation plan from the county's emergency management department.

Walt Jackson, the emergency management coordinator, said the plan is reassessed every five years and its approval allows the county to be eligible for federal aid should a disaster strike.

Jackson said the department worked with Southeast Iowa Planning five years ago.

'We paid them a bunch of money, we had to have a whole bunch of meetings - that kind of stuff,” the coordinator said of the process.

'This time, since we had a plan in place - it was a good plan, well done - I went through and updated some of the stuff in it, took some stuff out that wasn't relative to us anymore. Found some errors that we overlooked last time,” Jackson said.

The coordinator said the plan named areas of the county such as Coppock and Rome as part of the plan, but did not have information or descriptions of the areas.

In addition to the county's adoption of the plan, Jackson said each city and school district will have to adopt the plan to receive federal money during a disaster.

Jackson said the plan has already been approved by the state. After one entity from the county adopts the plan, it gets sent back to the state who passes the plan to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for approval.

Board member Marc Lindeen asked whether a potential disaster has to be explicitly listed in the plan in order for the county to get aid. Jackson said that was not true because 'they know there's stuff that comes up that people have never thought of.”

During the meeting, the board interviewed a candidate for an open position on the county's Conservation Board.

Max Mercer, a commercial loan officer for Danville Bank, said he recently moved to the county and is 'looking for opportunities to be involved.” In his application for the position, Mercer notes he is an avid sportsman who 'enjoys hunting, fishing, camping, hiking and training [his] dog.”

In response to a question about how he viewed conservation, Mercer said he believes it should focus on both recreation for parks as well as hunting and fishing.

'Hunters and fishermen fund the majority of conservation projects throughout the United States,” Mercer said.

The candidate, who grew up in Des Moines County, said as a board member he would be interested in 'improving public land access in Henry County.”

'It's huge. There's hardly anywhere to go hunt in Henry County, so that's a big priority for me,” Mercer said.

The Board of Supervisors said they will be interviewing another candidate for the position on Tuesday.