Forest Park has signed on to continue participating in Cook County’s multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan.
The village has been a part of it for several years to provide them with financial assistance in the event of an emergency.
Commissioners unanimously voted to approve the resolution at the Nov. 12 village council meeting after Village Administrator Rachell Entler explained the plan.
“Say a tornado swept through multiple jurisdictions and the county needs to come out,” Entler said. “This [plan] would assist us in being able to access grants,” making the village eligible for any financial assistance that the county gets, like from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, she added.
According to recently passed resolution, FEMA gives grant funding for pre-disaster mitigation and after-disaster efforts through the Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grant program. But to qualify for the program’s grants, jurisdictions must adopt their own hazard mitigation plan and update it every five years.
Entler said Forest Park is working with Cook County to update the village’s individual emergency operations plan, which addresses the village’s hazard mitigation plan and outlines what to do in the event of a natural disaster or crisis.
“One of the events in particular was the CTA shooting that we had,” Entler said at the village council meeting.
While Forest Park has always had an emergency operations plan, it is being updated so the village can receive smaller-scale grants, like one just for an emergency in Forest Park, officials said.
After Forest Park updates its emergency operations plan – which Entler said will take about a year – and it’s approved by the council, village employees will undergo hazard mitigation training.