County emergency manager urges short, usable action plans and a single local point of contact

Jason Miller, the county emergency manager, briefed the Fountain Green City Council on local emergency preparedness and urged the city to adopt short, actionable emergency action plans, designate a liaison for volunteers and nonprofits, and keep a current digital plan that can be accessed in the field.

Miller said the work of emergency management fits into four phases — planning and preparation, mitigation, response and recovery — and that local planners benefit most from short, checklist-style documents they can use in real time rather than long, technical binders. “We plan and prepare. We mitigate. We respond, and then we recover,” Miller said.

Why it matters: Fountain Green experienced significant flooding during the recent winter runoff, and council members reported confusion when multiple county officials contacted local leaders during the response. Miller said clearer local assignments and a shared plan would reduce duplicated effort and improve coordination with county and regional partners.

Miller described the county Emergency Operations Plan as a large reference binder with annexes and said the more useful local product is the emergency action plan (EAP) — a short, task-focused checklist that explains who does what and where to find resources during an incident. He offered five printed EAP copies and a concise ICS (Incident Command System) handout that he said summarizes command roles and functions in minutes.

On information sharing, Miller said he stores plans on a shared Google Drive to allow responders to pull up procedures in the field and offered to provide PDFs for the city to post. One council member suggested city IT or an identified staffer post and maintain the file.

Miller also urged the council to assign a single liaison to coordinate volunteers and nonprofit aid organizations such as the Red Cross, which in the town’s recent flood arrived ready to help but sometimes had no clear local tasks. “Glad you want to help. You’re not helping,” Miller said he would tell well-meaning groups unless they are coordinated through a point person responsible for assigning tasks.

Miller noted a procedural requirement when discussing plan upkeep: “The state requires us, the county, to review the plan once a year,” he said, recommending that the city annually update the short contact list and the EAP so a person on duty can immediately know whom to call.

Council discussion focused on how granular to make role assignments versus assigning tasks on the fly based on who shows up, and on ensuring new council members are trained on the EAP. Miller recommended training and periodic review rather than trying to pre-name individuals for roles that change with elected terms and attendance.

Next steps discussed included sharing Miller’s EAP/PDF with the council, posting the plan to a shared drive for Fountain Green, and scheduling a yearly review process to update contact lists and responsibilities. No formal motion or vote was recorded in the transcript.