Coffee County EMA, police and fire brief on Bonnaroo safety plans, traffic and on-site services

Coffee County EMA staff and local police and fire officials on Wednesday outlined public-safety preparations for the Bonnaroo music festival, saying personnel and traffic-control assignments have changed this year and that agencies will operate co-located command posts and on-site dispatch.

The advisory board heard that Manchester Police Department representative Adam Floyd said the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the sheriff’s office have reallocated some traffic posts at the venue, and that the city will step in for some of those posts. “We’re actually gonna have a training session tomorrow morning at 9AM at City Hall with those employees to kinda give them some direction,” Floyd said, referring to civilian city employees hired to direct traffic and earn overtime. He added, “Nothing really new. It’s business as usual for us.”

The change in vehicle ingress and egress stems from new day-parking arrangements. Floyd said the festival organizers leased a field from landowner Allen Howard across from Powers Road and Bushy Branch and “they’re expecting to park about 5,000 cars on that piece of property,” shifting traffic toward Highway 55.

Why this matters: the altered parking and traffic flows shift where law enforcement and volunteer personnel will be posted and affect mutual-aid plans, ambulance staging and firefighter response times. The group said co-location of command posts and an on-site 911/dispatch presence will help route emergency resources quickly.

Details and coordination: Assistant Chief Tyler Hickerson of the Manchester Fire Department said his department will send personnel to cover roughly 1,000 hours of traffic-control duties during the festival week and will provide a fire truck if mutual aid is requested. Hillsborough (as referenced in the meeting) and other volunteer departments will staff apparatus near the venue; Hillsborough’s units will be located “behind the main stage,” Coffee County EMA staff said.

Coffee County EMS (representative absent from the meeting) plans to staff two ambulances on-site with a main medical location at the venue’s bridal house/Cox House location, and most patient care is expected to be handled on-site with transport off-site as needed. “I think last year, they ran around 45 or 50 calls throughout the week,” a conference participant said of EMS activity last year.

Operational details discussed included: co-located command posts for EMA and festival organizers; an on-site dispatcher linked to county 911 (the meeting noted this is the third year of on-site dispatch); festival-provided side-by-side vehicles for fire and rescue movements; and Active911-mapped landmarks and event addresses to speed location finding for responding units.

Officials also described weather and mass-notification preparations. Alan (Coffee County EMA staff) said Bonnaroo has an on-site meteorologist and monitors lightning at ranges up to 50 miles, with escalation thresholds that can prompt show shutdowns and clearing of venues. He added that in past events a high number of automatic iPhone crash-detection calls complicated 911 handling, and organizers have worked to reduce those false activations.

Open items and limits: festival ticket sales were described only as “still selling tickets” and “high eighties” (not a precise figure). Several operational details remain in incident-action-plan drafts; EMA staff said some components will be added as the event approaches. No new formal policy or budget actions were made by the advisory board at the meeting.

Board actions recorded: the board approved the meeting agenda and minutes by voice vote and later adjourned; no votes affecting festival operations or funding were taken.

Officials to contact for follow-up: Adam Floyd and Coffee County EMA staff for operations; Assistant Chief Tyler Hickerson for fire staffing and mutual-aid details.