Todd County Emergency Management Director Daniel Smith told fiscal court Friday that last week’s severe weather exposed some weaknesses in how agencies communicate during disasters.
Todd County Dispatch serves as the backup to Christian County when ECC goes down or is overwhelmed and Smith says it didn’t take long once the winds got to going for 100 of Christian County’s calls to roll over to Todd County’s relatively small dispatch center.
He says a majority of the Christian County calls were motorists on I-24 reporting overturned tractor-trailers and ECC was receiving the same calls from different people, so there didn’t appear to be any emergencies being missed.
Smith says Todd and Christian County will need to work together to find better solutions for dealing with such a high quantity of calls in future events.
Another issue was the analogue radio system was at least partially down for much of Friday and that’s the only frequency the Road Department operates on. When Superintendent Scott Stokes was in an area without cell service, he was not able to receive notification of which roads remained blocked by trees and which ones had already been cleared by a fire department.
Judge-Executive Todd Mansfield says the county will be getting a price of a new digital radio to put in Stokes’ vehicle before the next court meeting so he will have two potential ways to receive information in future incidents.
Smith says there was very little damage to Todd County facilities, but they did declare a state of emergency Friday to help any agency that may be able to be reimbursed for damages or costs.
Meanwhile, Todd County Clerk Cindy O’Bryan says Kirkmansville voters will continue voting at North Todd Elementary School during the May primary, as efforts to bring Helen’s Home Cooking into ADA compliance to be able to serve as a polling location have not been completed.
Todd County Finance Manager Angie Taylor says the updated Todd County website is now online at toddcounty.ky.gov and you can use that page to renew or sign up for a convenience center trash card.