Overton EMA Needs Shown Following Ice Storm

In the aftermath of severe weather events like February’s ice storm, needs for emergency services can become apparent.

Overton County EMA Director Chris Masiongale said that UTV’s to access tower sites became an apparent need. Masiongale said he does have a long-term goal for the county to handle emergencies in the future.

“We don’t have the tax base to have a big Emergency Operations Center but I would hope, one day maybe that we could have an Emergency Operations Center,” Masiongale said. “What we did in lieu of having one is we established phones and we established communications in our 911 board room.”

Masiongale said the benefit of this during a disaster is having a established, centralized location instead of improvising as they go. He said being a small county, Overton relies heavily on volunteers.

“One of the things we would like to do is maybe, if we can, increase staff with our emergency management,” Masiongale said.

Masiongale said the UTV’s would help reach people and locations that are difficult to navigate. He said the vehicles could also help identify paths and access routes in future emergencies.

“We have a lot of trails in the county and we’ve mapped those trails probably 10 years ago,” Masiongale said. “So that would be one purpose of that need is to go back out and revisit that and remap those trails and that takes a considerable amount of time.”