Knox County EMA director Amy Seward details exercises, grants and partnerships

Amy Seward, the new director of Knox County Emergency Management Agency, told the Board of Commissioners on July 30 that she has spent the last six weeks settling into the job and running a series of preparedness activities. "I'm Amy Seward, and I'm the director for Knox County EMA," she said, and described a June school administrator tabletop under the P-20 program that escalated in the scenario to a death to show how a real incident could progress and how schools and first responders would coordinate.

Seward outlined additional planning steps and funding. She said the county will run a LEPC functional hazmat exercise tied to a school incident (scheduled for the 13th as part of state calendar requirements) to test evacuations, and that the EMA has been reimbursed nearly $59,000 into the general revenue fund from MPG grant activity. Seward also said she "secured a $250,000 homeland security grant" that will be used to buy temporary barriers for securing outdoor events and election sites; commissioners discussed possible storage at the county's new transit building and noted HOA and logistical constraints. Seward added she arranged a 16-hours-per-week partnership with NOS Public Health (Suzanne Gaffrey) to advance EMA projects and that her presentation on the county's reunification team was accepted for a national conference in Long Beach in November.

The update included operational details: an RV donated by Frederick County is being prepared for conversion to a mobile command unit (the vehicle was offered for sale/retrofit and the county is soliciting vendors), and the EMA is scheduling school reunification exercises and other trainings. Seward said the county's inter-agency relationships remain strong and that the coming months will be busy as the office uses the new grant funds and training reimbursements to build capacity.