Be prepared before disaster strikes.

As a community leader, we know you juggle many day-to-day responsibilities. Are you prepared for the unexpected? Illinois Extension has been helping communities plan for and recover from disaster for years. Let us help you carry the burden by helping you create a plan that protects emergency workers and residents.

Understand your role as community leaders.

• What plans are in place and what is your role
• How to support your first responders
• How a disaster should begin and end locally (in so much as where efforts come from)
• The amount of recovery level or capacity can compare to PREPAREDNESS and MITIGATION
• How to keep dialogues, checks, and information circulating – all communities could have a disaster (every county has had a federal disaster declaration at some point).

Conduct county and community-level activities.

• Mitigation planning with counties
• Assistance in grants and update plans
• Develop Assistance/Outreach for different types of preparedness
• Non-profits dedicated to emergency response, youth, community members, organizations, animals/veterinary
• Public education and resources
• COAD development and emergency action planning for the different response entity types

Get prepared.

• Organizational Preparedness
• Community / Family Preparedness
• E.R. Non-Profit Preparedness
• Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) Development
• Domestic/Wild Animal
• County Mitigation Plans

Illinois Extension is a founding member of the Extension Disaster Education Network. This collaborative multi-state effort by Extension programs across the country improve the delivery of services to residents affected by disasters. EDEN's mission is to reduce the impact of disasters through research-based education. 

About EDEN

The Mississippi and Missouri floods of 1993 caused 32 deaths and billions of dollars of damage. Land-grant universities that responded to the disaster took stock of the experience and realized the important role Extension outreach can have in local disaster preparedness and recovery. EDEN was created in 1998 and began partnering with local, state. and national agencies. Since 2005, EDEN includes all of the U.S. and three territories. Illinois Extension has EDEN-affiliate staff across the state. Illinois' Carrie McKillip is the current EDEN chair.