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Knox County emergency management details exercises, seeks state grant for movable barrier trailer
Summary
Knox County emergency management described recent exercises including a school reunification drill and regional CERT coordination, reviewed mass-notification vendors and said it applied for a $250,000 state homeland security grant to buy a movable barrier trailer for outdoor events and elections.
James Deshont, director of Knox County Emergency Management and the county’s intelligence liaison, and Amy Seward, deputy director, told the board Oct. 2 that their office has focused this fall on public outreach, interagency training and regional coordination to bolster responses to active-threat and other incidents.
Deshont said the office ran radio public-service announcements and that staff members presented to the Emergency Needs Committee to help partner agencies update emergency-operation and continuity plans. “We did a public service announcement on 93 q and 100.9. There were 5 of us, that did a 30 second blurb,” Seward said.
The directors described a reunification exercise at Fredericktown Local School that used round‑robin stations, radio‑communications training and a new checkout station to track custodial pick‑ups. “We had about 95 participants,” Seward said, adding that visiting observers from neighboring districts attended to learn the process and strengthen regional coordination.
Deshont flagged volunteer capacity concerns for community emergency response teams (CERT), saying several contiguous counties lack enough trained volunteers and discussing plans to pool CERT resources for larger incidents. He also discussed amateur‑radio (ARES) testing from the 911 office and an upcoming statewide exercise to validate redundant communications channels.
Seward said she applied to the FY25 state homeland security grant to buy movable crowd-control barriers and a trailer as a regional asset. “So I applied through our fiscal 25 state homeland security grant to purchase barriers for outdoor events. I put in 250,000,” she told the commission, adding a quoted trailer kit price near $140,000 and that the equipment could be used for public events and to support safe elections.
On mass notifications, Deshont reviewed the county’s renewal options and tradeoffs among established vendors and smaller providers. He said Inspiron Logistics (the county’s current provider) meets the county’s needs, that the county pays a flat subscription rather than per‑recipient charges and that smaller firms offering lower per‑message pricing may not be sustainable. “No — we are not [being charged per alert]. Inspiron Logistics is being charged,” Deshont said.
The directors also described recent on‑scene work: evaluating a Richland County table‑top incident, observing Delaware County’s EOC activation and supporting a multi‑agency missing‑person search on Hammett Road that required Starlink to restore communications and volunteer reception centers. They reported a liquid‑asphalt spill that involved EPA cleanup and roadway repairs and said the county’s draft hazard mitigation plan is posted online for public review through Oct. 1–16.
The commission did not take a board action on the grant request at the meeting; Seward said she expects to hear back about the state grant in the coming weeks and that the federal application remains pending because an external site was down.
