Marshall’s Hazard Mitigation Plan Is Open for Comment: 19 Projects—and Draft Gaps to Fix by July 31

By the Real Ryan Nichols Editorial Team

Marshall residents have until Friday, July 31, 2026, to comment on a plan that could shape how the city seeks funding and reduces damage from tornadoes, flooding, winter storms, drought, wildfire, extreme heat and infrastructure failures.

The City of Marshall announced the public-comment period on July 22. Comments may be emailed to Fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator David Rainwater at rainwater.david@marshalltexas.net, or mailed to City of Marshall Emergency Management, 601 S. Grove Street, Marshall, Texas 75670.

The city’s 67-page draft Hazard Mitigation Plan is not an emergency alert or a prediction that a disaster is about to happen. It is a long-range planning document. It identifies hazards, describes who and what may be vulnerable, and lists 19 proposed actions that could support future grants, budgets, engineering work and emergency planning.

The draft also contains visible gaps and internal contradictions that should be corrected before adoption. That is not a reason to dismiss the plan. It is exactly why a public review matters.

The facts at a glance

Question	What the official record says
What opened?	Public comment on the City of Marshall Hazard Mitigation Plan
Announcement date	July 22, 2026
Comment deadline	Friday, July 31, 2026
Plan length	67 pages
Number of proposed actions	19
Who is coordinating comments?	Fire Chief / Emergency Management Coordinator David Rainwater
Where to comment	Email the coordinator or mail Emergency Management at 601 S. Grove Street, Marshall, TX 75670
Is the plan final?	No. The posted copy is a draft and includes an uncompleted adoption resolution

The plan says it was prepared under the federal Disaster Mitigation Act framework and FEMA’s local-planning rules. It is intended to become Marshall’s annex to the updated Harrison County multi-jurisdictional hazard plan.

FEMA explains that local hazard-mitigation planning is meant to identify risks and develop long-term actions that reduce injuries and property damage. The Texas General Land Office likewise describes these plans as a way for eligible local governments to identify, assess and reduce long-term risk.

That federal and state context does not approve every fact or project in Marshall’s draft. It explains why getting the local facts right matters.

What risks the draft identifies

The plan classifies these natural hazards as significant threats to Marshall:

• Tornadoes;
• severe thunderstorms, including hail, lightning and damaging straight-line wind;
• riverine, flash and urban stormwater flooding;
• winter storms and extreme cold;
• drought;
• wildfire;
• extreme heat;
• dam or levee failure;
• expansive soils; and
• inland effects from hurricanes and tropical cyclones.

It also discusses hazardous-material releases, infrastructure failure and cybersecurity for planning purposes. Those human-caused risks are not counted toward the federal natural-hazard requirement.

The Marshall Emergency Management page independently lists drought, flooding, hazardous-material incidents, hurricanes and tornadoes among the emergencies its program addresses.

Tornado and flood history are central to the plan

The draft says NOAA records show 82 tornadoes in Harrison County from 1950 through 2025, with approximately 30 events affecting or passing within five miles of Marshall’s city limits. It classifies a future tornado somewhere in the county as highly likely.

Those are plan findings based on the cited NOAA and National Weather Service records. They should not be read as a forecast that Marshall will be struck on a particular date.

Flooding receives similarly detailed treatment. The plan says Marshall’s vulnerability includes riverine flooding along tributaries, flash flooding after intense rain and urban flooding where drainage systems are overwhelmed.

It identifies long-running concerns in the Parker Creek, Cox Creek, Happy Hollow Creek and West Fork of Eight Mile Creek areas. The draft says some drainage deficiencies were documented in a 1971 city plan and attributes continuing risk to undersized channels and culverts, limited detention, missing drainage easements and increased impervious cover.

The plan reports five National Flood Insurance Program repetitive-loss properties, ten claims and $557,847.93 in paid losses based on Texas Water Development Board correspondence dated June 10, 2026. It says none of the five properties has been mitigated.

Property-specific locations are appropriately not published in this article.

The 19 proposed actions

The draft assigns a lead agency, possible funding source, time frame and priority to each action. The most consequential proposals include:

1. Assess critical facilities. Review City Hall and the emergency operations center, police and fire stations, water and wastewater facilities and lift stations for tornado, wind, flood, ice and extended power-loss vulnerability.

2. Improve warnings. Replace aging outdoor sirens, add coverage, strengthen Wireless Emergency Alert capability and place NOAA Weather Radio receivers in city facilities and schools.

3. Upgrade chronic-flood infrastructure. Engineer drainage, detention, culvert and channel work in recurring problem areas. The plan references a group of Region 4 flood projects totaling approximately $26.3 million, while making clear that funding would still have to be pursued.

4. Update flood maps and studies. Work with the Texas Water Development Board and FEMA Risk MAP on local flood studies and Flood Insurance Rate Maps.

5. Develop safe rooms. Build or retrofit community safe rooms in high-occupancy public facilities and consider residential safe-room rebates for manufactured homes and other at-risk housing.

6. Reduce wildfire risk. Develop or adopt a Community Wildfire Protection Plan, reduce fuels near the wildland-urban interface and promote defensible space.

7. Update building codes. Adopt newer building and fire codes with wind- and flood-resistance provisions.

8. Harden the water system. Add freeze protection and backup power; modernize controls; replace aging raw-water mains and vulnerable electrical equipment; and improve system redundancy.

9. Strengthen drought planning. Update the drought-contingency plan, improve leak detection and meters, and pursue alternative supply or storage.

10. Plan for extreme heat. Designate and equip cooling centers and build outreach for residents most vulnerable to heat.

11. Obtain dam-inundation information. Secure emergency-action plans and maps for high- and significant-hazard dams whose inundation areas may affect Marshall.

12. Address repetitive-loss properties. Work with owners on acquisition, elevation or floodproofing when appropriate and funded.

13. Address expansive soils. Educate property owners about foundation care and replace buried-utility joints vulnerable to soil movement.

14. Prepare for inland tropical systems. Pre-position generators and fuel, maintain debris-removal agreements and coordinate utility vegetation work.

15. Coordinate regionally. Continue work with Harrison County and neighboring jurisdictions.

16. Create an annual education campaign. Cover tornado, flood, freeze, wildfire, heat and hazardous-material safety.

17. Harden cybersecurity and control systems. Segment operational technology and SCADA networks and conduct recurring testing.

18. Add wastewater backup power. Install generators or hardened generator connections at prioritized lift stations to reduce the risk of sanitary-sewer overflows.

19. Harden the Marshall Civic Center as an all-hazards shelter. Add permanent backup power, wind and impact improvements, and a formal shelter agreement capable of supporting full HVAC, kitchen, communications and lighting loads.

These are proposals, not completed projects. The plan repeatedly conditions implementation on funding, engineering, prioritization and future action.

The draft gaps residents should flag

Several parts of the posted plan are visibly unfinished or internally inconsistent.

Missing building counts

The vulnerability section says Marshall has approximately “[INSERT NUMBER]” residential, commercial and public structures. Those placeholders should be replaced with sourced counts or the sentence should be revised before the plan is adopted.

Contradictory repetitive-loss table

The narrative says Marshall has five repetitive-loss properties and zero severe repetitive-loss properties. The accompanying occupancy table, however, displays zeros under every repetitive-loss category, shows two multifamily properties under the severe-repetitive-loss column, and then gives totals of five repetitive-loss and zero severe-repetitive-loss properties.

At least one part of that table is wrong. The city should reconcile it against the underlying Texas NFIP data.

Adoption language is incomplete

The proposed City Council resolution still contains “[INSERT NUMBER]” and “[INSERT DATE]” placeholders. That may be normal before adoption, but the public should be able to distinguish fields intentionally awaiting council action from facts that are simply missing.

The version labeling is confusing

Interior page headers call the document “Hazard Mitigation Plan (Draft 2025),” while the PDF metadata, source consultations and public release are from 2026. A clear cover date, version number and revision history would make it easier for residents to know which copy they reviewed.

These observations come directly from the posted draft. They do not establish misconduct, hidden intent or misuse of funds.

Who is most affected

The plan identifies older residents, people with disabilities, low-income households, residents without vehicles, manufactured-home residents, limited-English households, students living on local campuses, hospital patients and people in long-term-care facilities as groups that may face higher risk.

It estimates 350 to 400 manufactured or mobile homes within city limits and says approximately 22.4% of residents are below the federal poverty level. Those figures are presented as draft-plan estimates and should be verified against the final cited datasets.

Small businesses also have a direct stake. The plan says extended utility outages, flooding and reduced visitation can hit businesses without continuity or recovery plans especially hard.

What remains uncertain

The public record does not yet establish:

• which of the 19 projects will receive money;
• when construction would begin;
• the final cost of each action;
• which siren areas currently lack adequate coverage;
• which buildings would serve as safe rooms or cooling centers;
• whether the Civic Center has a finalized Red Cross shelter agreement;
• the corrected repetitive-loss property breakdown;
• the missing building inventory;
• which projects City Council will ultimately adopt; or
• how public comments will change the final text.

The plan supplies estimated time frames, priorities and possible funding programs. Those are planning targets, not contracts, appropriations or construction notices.

A useful comment takes ten minutes

Residents do not need to write a technical report. A useful comment can do four things:

1. Identify the page, action number or neighborhood-level issue.
2. Describe a firsthand condition without publishing private information.
3. Ask for a specific correction, measurement or project milestone.
4. Request that the city explain how the final plan addressed the comment.

A concise example:

I support Action 2 on emergency warnings. Please publish the current siren-coverage map, identify coverage gaps, and add a measurable completion target. I also ask the city to correct the unresolved placeholders and repetitive-loss table before adoption.

Residents with records of recurring street flooding can identify the intersection or public roadway, dates, photographs and whether emergency access was affected. Do not send private medical information, unredacted insurance records or another person’s personal data.

Send comments by Friday, July 31, 2026, to rainwater.david@marshalltexas.net, or mail them to City of Marshall Emergency Management, 601 S. Grove Street, Marshall, TX 75670.

Ryan’s Take

Marshall has lived through enough water failures, hard freezes, dangerous heat and severe weather to know that resilience cannot be a binder on a shelf.

There is real value in this draft. It names the water-system work, drainage corridors, generators, warning gaps, shelters and vulnerable residents that deserve attention. But a serious plan also needs clean numbers, clear version control and measurable commitments.

Public comment should not be treated as ceremonial. If residents flag a flooded road, a siren dead zone, a missing shelter need or a contradictory table, the final plan should show what changed—or explain why it did not.

The constructive response is simple: read the sections that affect your street, business, school, church or family; send one specific comment; and keep the final version so the city’s progress can be measured against its own priorities.

Related East Texas coverage

• Nehemiah Inspected the Ruins Before Rebuilding: What Marshall’s Water Crisis Requires Now
• East Texas Heat Advisory Covers Longview and Marshall: What to Do Now
• East Texas Business Spotlight: Connor Walters and Silver Grizzly Espresso
• Browse the East Texas archive

Primary and authoritative sources

• City of Marshall public-comment announcement, July 22, 2026
• City of Marshall Hazard Mitigation Plan, 67-page draft
• City of Marshall Emergency Management
• FEMA: Local hazard mitigation planning
• Texas General Land Office: Local Hazard Mitigation Plans

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