| Corps to review county buildings |
By: John Brannon, Staff Reporter
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Posted: Tuesday, March 2, 2010 9:05 pm
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By JOHN BRANNON
Staff Reporter
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) has chosen Obion County and four other counties in northwest Tennessee for a study of critical infrastructures to be used as public shelters.
“This has to do with the upcoming 200th anniversary of the earthquakes along the New Madrid fault zone in 1811-1812,” said county commissioner and budget committee chairman Danny Jowers.
Also included in the study are Lake, Weakley, Dyer, and Gibson counties.
The announcement was made during a meeting of the Obion County Budget Committee Monday at the Obion County Courthouse. Jowers, who also serves as director of Obion County Emergency Management Agency, told the committee that the Obion County School System is involved in the study.
“The Corps of Engineers is going to be here this week to review 25 critical infrastructures in our county,” he said. “I have placed most of the schools on the list of critical infrastructures. It’s possible they would be used as shelters during a catastrophic event.”
The Corps team will evaluate each school to determine what size generator is needed and then issue a certificate of need for the school.
He said TEMA takes its cue from the ice storms of Jan. 26-27, 2009, that hit Kentucky and portions of Tennessee, leaving entire counties without electrical power.
“We learned a big lesson from that storm,” he said. “Generators were just sitting around. Nobody knew if the (building) panels would be compatible with the generator hook-ups. You can’t just go hook one up to a building. And there was a problem with size. Does this building require a 100-KW generator or a 50-KW generator? We want to be ahead of that, avoid those problems. “This study will give us better preparation in case there is a major event where we lose power for an extended time. It’s just one more thing that we’ll have done in case there is a major event.”
Published in The Messenger 3.2.10
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