Emergency Management Agency Board - Regular Meeting

All right. Good afternoon everyone. Like to welcome everyone to our quarterly Coffee County EMA Advisory Board meeting. Uh the date is May 28, 2025. It's 5:00 and I'd like to uh call this meeting to order. Roll call is we have two two members absent. Um going down a list uh like before we approve the agenda, I'd like to make some changes to it real quick here. I'd like to go uh under 1 C. Let's go uh 1D. Let's go public comments right there. Let's mark out number two under new business. Just label that E. And then after all the stuff on E, let's go down and make a F and let our let's do that be our set our time and location of our next meeting. And then for G, let's have a German. That being said, I'd entertain a motion to approve this agenda. Make a motion. Motion made by Adam Floyd. I'll second. Have a second. All in favor of that? have it. All right. On the back of your list, you have the minutes from our last meeting. Read over those carefully. Any questions about them, bring it up. You can bring it up. The next page over we have our new business. Anything you see that you want to discuss, questions about, we'll uh we'll bring that up under new business.

If everyone's through, I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Make a motion to approve minutes. Uh motion made by Mr. Goldston to approve. Do I have a second? I'll second. Seconded by Tyler Hickerson. All in favor of approval of the minutes. Let's have it. All right, moving on down. Um, which will be 1D be any public comments? We don't have anybody here. I gave you the time under public comments. Anybody have any questions about anything on the minutes? If so, bring it up. None being we'll move on to E under um E under any business. We'll move to our Bonnaroo update. Adam, you have the floor with the police department. Any any anything you want to add to it? I know some things you can't add, but anything you want to go over now is your time. Uh nothing really new. It's uh business as usual for us. Uh the only really change that affects us is the traffic direction and traffic. Uh sheriff's departments uh reallocated their assets to be more focused on the venue. So that took away some traffic uh post that they provided in the past and the highway patrols reduced some of their numbers as well. So we've we've taken over those posts that THP's normally done and we've opened the opportunity for city employees, civilian employees, uh to work traffic and generate some overtime for some of the city employees that would normally not have that opportunity. We're actually going to have a training

session tomorrow morning at 9:00 am at city hall with those employees to kind of give them some direction and and just go over items they need to know to prepare for a week of direct and traffic and some pretty uh tough conditions. But other than that, everything else is uh pretty normal for Bonaroo for us. So y'all have officers inside the gates uh just patrolling. Is that correct? Yeah. Our department's split in half and half the departments on the venue and the other half's handling traffic and normal calls in the city. We have the everybody in the department works. No days off, 12-hour shifts. Gota How about on the left side of uh Bushy Branch over there in the county? Is that Is that going to be the sheriff's department? Are y'all going to be over there too? All the camping's over. They're still in the county. Yeah, they're they're still part of that uh shed road area is still considered in the county. Uh, one of the big changes they've made on the venue that would affect some traffic is they've moved day parking. Uh, now it's moved on at Bushy Branch and uh right across from Powers Road and Bushy Branch the field across from the the old main gate. Mhm. Uh they've they've leased that property from Allen Howard and they're going to move day parking there which would be they're expecting to park about 5,000 cars on that piece of property and that'll change for us. It'll change the daily ingress and egress where it would have come in on the other end of the property. Now that day parking will be coming in off Ragel Road and Highway 55 area. So that

increased the traffic on that side of the property for us. But that's the only major change that's happened out there. Y'all's u the command center. Where is it? Where was it going to be located at? We're going to we're going to put a tent and some fans at Rags on 55 where we used to have the mobile command set up. Uh our new command uh trailer is going to be located on the venue just outside of Bon's command where EMA is set up. Gotcha. Any guys got any questions for Adam? Anything you want to know? Any information? Anything that he can answer? Yeah, I'll answer it all. Bill, you got anything? You're you're a resident out there in the area. You got anything? I'm just All right, we'll move on to U Coffee County EMS and he's not here today. So I can us on out. Yeah, I can probably do that and potentially Hillsboro Fire since our office works with all those agencies to prepare the incident action plan. So, u right now Coff County EMS is planning on staffing two ambulances out there. Uh most days they may be subbing some of it out to other agencies coming in. Uh but they normally are at uh was that Kimberly Lane? Is that right? Um at the old um um I think they call it the Cox House, the brick house there at the end. That's their new main medical. So they'll be staffed there at that location. And

they're just transport only offsite. Most everything's handled on site. So I think last year they ran around 45 or 50 calls throughout the week. Um so Hillsboro Fire, we worked diligently with Bonnaroo last year. um they was way in the back 60 um year before and we worked with Bonnaroo to try to get them into a better location, centrally located um because I I felt like it was necessary to put a fire department more centrally located if you had a city, you know, move in. So, where are they where are they going to be at? Uh, they're actually going to be uh behind the main stage. Uh, I'm not sure the exact road, but it's right off the uh admin way. So, they're back there fairly close to us, but uh just a hop, skip, and a jump from going right or left to get anywhere on the property. So, same place as last year. Yeah. Are they uh how about the staffing? They are they fully staffed or you know where they're at on that now? I talked to the chief the other day and uh he's still working on staffing that up but uh he doesn't see any problem with staffing that requires so many people especially on uh the nice that they do the pyro stuff. Um you know they require somebody to be on stage. I guess that's a live nation rule. I'm not sure, but uh Tyler may be able to speak to that. But um anyway, they require so many people to to be on stage, I think, too. And uh so they have to staff up on those

days that they're doing pyro, which I don't know what nights that'll be it. Do you know what equipment they're going to have out there? Uh, so they'll have an engine, a tanker, a brush truck, and then they'll have side by sides with portable water capabilities and a small pump. So, are they are they using the uh use their own stuff this year or are they using what Bonnaroo's furnished for them? Uh, as far as I know, they've asked for side besides from Bonnaroo. They're just the side by sides will come from Bonner. Yeah. Is Rescue Squad usually right there with them? Maybe somewhere else. They have been in the past, but they wasn't last year. Okay. They were offside last year. No. Any any more questions on Hillsboro Fire? Hill, you ain't asking any questions. Got anything? Nothing? No. I think they've done a really good job out there. I mean, they got invited back to do it again this year, which tells me Bonnaroo is pretty pleased with them. Right. Right. Right. And it's a it's a good fundraiser for for the fire department, for sure. Now, do they do their staffing with outside courses as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, they reach out to all of the uh the other departments, the paid departments. Um their setup is a little bit different. Uh because the way they

work is you work, and correct me if I'm wrong because some of y'all have worked it. Um, they work if you work one 12-hour shift, you get one band. If you work two 12-hour shifts, you get two bands, but two bands is the maximum. So, basically, if you and another person want to go, you work a 24-hour shift. So, that's they don't get paid anything to be there. So, and it, you know, it's like anything else that's um volunteer-based. It's it's band driven. It's whoever's going to be there. So if you know if somebody likes the bands, they they want to work. If they don't, it's hard to find folks. Gota. All righty. We'll move on down to Manchester Fire. Tyler's here. Assistant Chief Hickerson's here representing Manchester Fire. Tyler, what's Manchester Fire's plan? Business as usual. Um, we have personnel that's going to be helping out Manchester PD. Um, and then of course if we get called for any mutual aid calls out there, Hillsboro calls us, then we'll be responding with a truck out there for them. Adam Adam said earlier talking about traffic, y'all. What's the Can you tell us what's going on with the traffic? Y'all just going to be placed in certain places or y'all be it together, mixed up, or how you doing that? Yeah. So, Assistant Chief Floyd has uh set up a list of where he needs personnel at and um we have filled in quite a few of those spaces with some of our fire department personnel and at different times and stuff like that. Okay. Yeah, Manchester Fires probably accum they're they're responsible for about a thousand hours of traffic control during the week

of Bon. Pretty impressive. They were a hu I think last year was the first year that they helped us and was a huge help. Of course, they've got experience dealing with traffic just like law enforcement. So, they know what they're doing and big help last year and a big help this year. How many how many individuals you know right off hand? I mean, you got total or from fire department? I don't even remember. We added a couple today. I don't know. I don't know the total from the fire department. It's probably 10 to 15 covering multiple shifts though. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them are working more than one shift. Gotcha. All right. Any questions for any more questions for Tyler? If not, we'll go on down to uh EMA. Go ahead and go over your things you want to do out there, Alan. What you got going just inform the public where we what's going on? Sure. So, so our job is coordination um first and foremost. So, we've been working with all of our local, state, and federal partners uh for the last few months to and and Bonoo itself. Uh we've been meeting with them virtually. Um so, we've pulled uh we call it an incident action plan. We've pulled that together. Uh it's pretty well complete. There's a couple of components that still need to be added and they'll be added as as the event gets closer. Uh our command post will be set up, as Adam said, across from uh where Bonnaroo has their command post. So, we found it to be the best location for us and them. We're right across from each other. So

we can we can go in and and uh and meet with them at any time. We will be doing two uh tabletop exercises on that Monday uh before the event opens. Um, Bonaroo will be doing u one of the exercises and we're putting together the second exercise and uh, of course, we're keeping that close to the chest so that the players don't know the scenario prior to, but it should be something that everybody's ready for. So, yeah, let's include Yeah. So I haven't heard anything in my part. I do. We'll sidebar. Hadn't sent out a request yet. So other than that, I mean, you know, our our uh our role at Bonnaroo is just to monitor weather, uh monitor uh other things. You know, in the past, we've had um we've had issues with u 911 calls. Uh our 911 center will be there. Uh I think this is the third year. Is that right, Adam? That that we've actually had on-site dispatchers for our personnel and it's worked out really good. Um, so, uh, I think they've named some roads and they put some addresses to some things out there now, the permanent structures. So, that's going to help as landmarks, uh, for patrol and and fire. Um, so, uh, we'll be monitoring, like I

said, the weather and and other things, the 911 calls. A couple of years ago, uh we had I think it was around 7 or 800 one day and it was because everybody had their crash detection on on their iPhones and every time the little trolley things would move and jerk, it would set it off and it would automatically call 911 like you'd had a wreck. So, we had to do a mass notification on that. So, uh, hopefully they've got that issue fixed. Now, do we have any numbers on the estimated crowd size and ticket sales? We know anything about that? As far as I know, they're still selling tickets. Um, I haven't I haven't heard Huh. High8s last. High8s. Very good ticket sales. Yeah, I think the lineup's pretty good out there. Seems like this year. Well, it the I think they found their niche that the lineup is is definitely bringing the folks in and Allan touched on something the 911 the mapping that's pretty big deal. Yeah, it's all mapped out. Of course, everybody here has been out there. It looks like a city and so them mapping it out and putting some some landmarks and uh will help first responders if they have to go out there and they've never been there before. they'll they will be able to find their way, right? It's it's active right now on active 911. It pulls up a marker. You click on it and click on that and then you can pull up a PDF of the actual event map. Good deal. Alan, anything else? Any more questions for him? I'm out of the loop just a little bit, but Sure. communications.

Is it through our radio system or does Bonnaroo have their own radio system or So, so Bonnaroo has their own radio system and their dispatch is colllocated with our dispatch. Uh we're all on the Tacken radio system now. So, uh and I'm not sure exactly what Bonnaroo is on, but but it's it's very easy to transfer information from one to the other. So, um if if they have a medical call or something that comes in 911, they can hand it off. Okay, moving on down. Mitigation update, Alan, go over that projects, what you got going on with that. Yeah, I I can I can touch on that. So, so we've been working with uh uh both cities um on mitigation projects uh as we have uh presidential declared declarations that opens up mitigation funding uh from the federal government. Uh and it's really good money to to take I hate to say take advantage of, but it's really good money to to utilize for things that we wouldn't normally be able to purchase. Um because this the feds pay 75% of a mitigation project. The state pays 12 a.5. So all the municipality or the county is out is 12 a.5% and that can be in kind match with work. So uh Manchester City is working on u we've had issues with Esther Lane and Skinner Flat Road for probably since it's been there. Uh so uh I talked with Britney the other day. They're about to finish

the application to send in uh for that project. Uh it's going to be just a renovation project. They're going to raise uh the road and uh make sure that the the water flows a lot better. So that because we had uh I don't have the figure in front of me, but there was several houses back in in that area that that were you basically couldn't get to. That was the only two ways in there to them. So So hopefully that that project will be completed within the next year. Uh the uh tornado siring project I talked with I got I got one thing on that. Oh that Esther Lane deal. Okay. Um, may have to get animal control out there because there was beavers out there building dams and was backing the water up. Know they got rid of a couple of them. I don't know if they Well, that was Well, we can talk I don't we can talk with Craig or whoever's whoever's over animal control. But in Yeah, that's not going to help us none at all. We'll move them before they built a big damiz dam out there. Yeah. All right. Go back to your tornado stuff. Well, you've caught me off guard now. Uh uh the uh the tornado sirene project is something uh that we've been working on with the city. Uh they Manchester City currently has one tornado sirene and I think it still has to be a push button at the police department. So, uh, they're looking at upgrading that system and putting multiple sirens in the city. Um, that will be what we call polygon base. They'll be based off the National

Weather Service. So, if if it's if that sirene is within the warned area, it will go off automatically. Nobody has to push a button. Uh, so that because I know nobody at night, nobody's at the police department, right? Correct. Did we ever figure out strategically where we was going to put these at so we could cover the populations? Well, the city I think Manchester has. And Tyler may know more about that than you know, you know the locations of them spots, Tyler? I don't know the exact locations, but based on the the radius of how far it would reach, it pretty much covered the whole city. I think it was I think it was like maybe seven or eight that was going up. Yeah. A lot of the companies that will help you map that out when you get further into once you actually order your sirens. They they travel a long way when one goes off at Dallas apartment in I can hear it at my house like it's next door. Yeah. They c they travel good. Yeah. Yeah. and and and those are older sirens that that tele. Um and and Tele is doing an update to their sirene system. They've got seven or eight. Uh one of them is even out at Mlo College. They worked u back in the day and put one at the college, but they're antiquated and they don't make parts for the ones that they have now. So, um been working with the city of uh to get them to do a mitigation grant for a tornado sirene update. They've already got the poles and everything. They just need the new sirens where Manchester is basically starting from scratch. Uh

other than I think we're replacing the one over city hall. Um, the one thing I do want to point out and um, because this question comes up is tornado warning sirens are made for outdoor warning. Uh, with the way homes and things are built nowadays, sometimes you can't hear them if you're if you're a great distance away from them. So, uh, so they're mainly for outdoor warning. uh which I'm glad we've got one on city hall here in Manchester because it covers all the the city park very well. Um but uh I just I just want to make sure that everybody knows that uh you know your weather radio, your telephone, all of that is still the best method if you're in the house. Uh especially at night asleep that's going to wake you up quicker than a sirene is unless you're right underneath it. Um, so I just wanted to to clarify that we are working on we talked with Manchester and we talked with the state and um, Bonnaroo is private property. So we can't put a sirene on private property and using federal dollars which makes sense. So we talked with the lady that's over mitigation for the state. She s she suggested uh portable sirens. Uh so they'll crank up about 40 ft I believe in the air and they'll still uh be set off by the polygon. They're trailer mounted. So uh we are working on uh a mitigation grant for two of the trailer mounted portable tornado sirene.

And I think that'll be beneficial for Bonaroo and other events that we have throughout the county. U where where do those people go at Bonnaroo? Yeah. So that is the million-dollar question. I mean what they what they tell them is to go to their vehicles is is what they tell them. Bathrooms usually get full. The barns get full. That one bathroom's full. Yeah. All the buildings that are out there, they feel Yeah. Then everybody else and and and Bonaroo does I mean they definitely have safety in mind and and they actually have their own meteorologist on site and he's watching the weather uh continuously and they monitor lightning strikes. I think they start monitoring it about 50 miles out and then as lightning progresses closer in they have certain levels that they go to. Um and uh they'll shut the shows down and and clear the venues and send them to their cars once it gets close enough. Well, we all know it's it's very it's you could have one out there because what three years ago we witnessed a small one go across there watched it when it picked all the tents up and I mean it was actually a Yeah. whirlwind I guess but it was spiraling. Yeah. Historical fact, we've had a tornado in every month of the year in Coffee County. Even in December, we shut down what twice last year. I think that was right. Twice last year for lightning. Yeah. So, uh, the other project that we're that's on the back burner right now,

but, uh, because we're focused on the, uh, uh, trailer mounted sirens is our our building is partially on generator power, uh, from the old generator that's down in the basement of the justice center. Uh it was used back in the day to run the jail part. Uh so none of our administrative portion or our u our operation center any of that is on generators. So uh I talked with the lady, she said we do critical infrastructure uh generators. So So that's something that we're going to look at next. We going to devote some time to to look at getting a generator for to to power our office. Gotcha. Getting back to speaking about tornadoes, I should invited Neil here. Um, do they do they have chainsaws for for the trees and storms and stuff? They are they outfitted with all that? I think they do have chainsaws and things like that. I think they've Yeah, they've helped out cutting trees and stuff before. Gotcha. Well, the highway department has some then both cities have some with the street departments. So, all right. Anything else you got? No, that's that's pretty well all I've got on those projects. Any more questions for Allan or Wade? We'll move on to U. F will set a time or next meeting kind of kind of do that quarterly. So we'd probably be looking at um probably October

August August. We'll just we'll toss that around and we'll set I'll get with you on the time and set that for August. Okay. Now, uh, I need a motion to adjourn this meeting. Motion motion by Tyler Hickerson forjournment. I'll second. Second, Mr. Rogers. All in favor of German. Appreciate everybody being here. See you next time.