News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Insurance money for flood damage at the Jackson County EMS and 911 building has come in.
Mayor Randy Heady said the county received roughly $50,000 for the damages and the department is back to work in the building. Heady said the county is in an assessment to see if flood mitigation is possible but ultimately any solution needs to prevent flooding from ever happening again.
“We really need to move the 911-EMS building,” Heady said. “So we are looking at doing that, as anyone knows that’s a process. That’s not a decision, that’s a process. Once you make the decision that you’re going to do that and we did that several months ago.”
Heady said he has reached out to both U.S. and State legislators to say moving the 911-EMS building is an immediate need for Jackson County. Heady said that the current building sits on the bank of the Doe Creek Watershed and has had multiple close calls with flooding before it was forced to evacuate in March.
“Flooding has almost been an issue several different times,” Heady said. “We’ve been prepared to move and then of course this time it did happen. Number one is getting that study done so we can do mitigation hopefully in the coming years to keep the flooding from happening.”
Heady said that expansion was already a need for the building, on top of the flood concerns. Heady said that staff is back in the building but there are still portions of rehabilitation and replacement needing to be completed.
