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Coffee County EMA outlines tornado-siren upgrades and mitigation grant work
Summary
Coffee County EMA staff described mitigation grant opportunities and planned upgrades including polygon-based city sirens, trailer-mounted portable sirens for the Bonnaroo venue, road-raising applications for flood-prone roads and consideration of a backup generator for the EMA operations center.
Coffee County EMA staff on Wednesday described mitigation projects under development, including tornado-siren upgrades, a road-raising application for flood-prone local roads and a potential generator to power the EMA operations center.
Alan (Coffee County EMA staff) told the advisory board that presidential disaster declarations open mitigation funding in which the federal government contributes roughly 75 percent of a project, the state 12.5 percent and the local municipality the remaining 12.5 percent (the local share may be provided as in-kind match). “Because the feds pay 75% of a mitigation project,” he said, “that can be in kind match with work.”
The board heard two siren efforts: Manchester city is planning a multi-siren upgrade to replace an older single siren. Those sirens will be “polygon based,” meaning they will trigger automatically when a National Weather Service warning covers the siren’s zone, rather than requiring manual activation. Alan said the city—s new array would likely use seven or eight fixed sirens to cover the municipality.
Because Bonnaroo is private property and federal mitigation funding cannot be used to place permanent sirens on private land, EMA staff said they are pursuing a mitigation grant for two trailer-mounted, portable tornado sirens. Alan said those trailer units can be elevated about 40 feet and will be linked to the polygon activation so they activate automatically and can be moved to event locations as needed.
Road and drainage mitigation: EMA staff said Manchester is preparing a grant application for a renovation project on Esther Lane and Skinner Flat Road intended to raise the road and improve drainage; several homes in that area have experienced access problems during high water. The project application was described as nearing completion.
Other infrastructure items discussed included replacing an aging siren at City Hall and exploring a generator to power EMA—s administrative and operations center; currently the building has partial generator power provided to the justice center basement equipment, not to the administrative or operations spaces. EMA staff said securing generator funding through mitigation sources for critical infrastructure is under consideration.
Wildlife and on-the-ground constraints were mentioned: beaver dams upstream have raised water levels in one mitigation area, which may require animal-control intervention prior to construction work. The board discussed chainsaw and debris-clearing capabilities available through highway and city street departments and volunteer fire departments.
No formal grant approvals or binding funding commitments were made at the meeting; staff said applications will be submitted and projects will continue through the normal mitigation-application review process.
