Workshop: Eaton County emergency management placed under central dispatch; emergency manager reports EF0 tornado damage

Ella Gardner, Eaton County emergency manager, told the committee she will resign effective July 22 and summarized recent emergency-management activity, including regional training and an EF0 tornado on June 9 that tracked roughly 3.2 miles with estimated maximum sustained winds around 75 mph. She said damage assessments found mostly vegetative debris, one destroyed storage barn and one affected manufactured home.

"On 06/09/2026, Eaton County experienced an EF0 tornado at approximately 10:30 in the morning," Gardner said. "The tornado tracked roughly 3.2 miles before dissipating around 10:37. The maximum sustained wind speeds were estimated at roughly 75 miles per hour."

Gardner presented an amended emergency-management program policy that formally establishes emergency management within the central dispatch department and designates it as the countys lead program for coordinating mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery activities. Commissioners asked for red-line language and clarification on section 1.02 concerning the chairs emergency-manager notification and on whether day-to-day operations would change; staff stressed the item largely codifies the current operational structure while consolidating administrative and financial reporting under dispatch.

The committee recorded a motion and second on the resolution and voted to forward the amended policy to the full board for adoption, with staff indicating a red-line version will be provided for the full-board packet.

Next steps: the amended emergency-management policy will be considered by the full board; staff will supply red-line language and implementation details as part of the full-board packet.