EMA Director reports to Commissioners on readiness in aftermath of Helene

Published 9:13 am Monday, October 14, 2024

The Sumter County Board of Commissioners met on October 8 at the Sumter County Court House. Charles Proctor with Gold Star EMS reported that the old EMS director had left and that Daniel Baker was the new replacement.

Paul Johnson addressed the Board of Commissioners during citizens comments. “I would like to. . .express my gratitude and the gratitude of the people effected by Hurricane Helene.” He praised Commissioner Jim Reid. “He has done an exemplary job in volunteering his services, the services of his employees, and recruiting others.”

Public works director James Littlefield talked about the stabilization of James Hart Road. The road runs between McMath Mill Road and SR30, for a length of about 1.2 miles. After looking at costs Littlefield recommended waiting until next year’s LMIG funds, which stands for Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant, which comes through GDOT on an annual basis.

EMA director Jerry Harmon gave a review of storm preparation after Hurricane Helene. “We did make the decision prior to the storm to open up the tornado shelter at GSP, and First Baptist Church opened up their storm shelter, they’ve done that voluntarily.”

He talked about changes with Red Cross. “We notified Red Cross, and we hit a big roadblock. Red Cross now provides help or assistance post storm, not pre-storm. So we had over 100 of our citizens sleeping on a hard concrete floor in state patrol office and or at First Baptist Church.” He stated having cots on hand was a need.

Harmon also mentioned there were issues at the Emergency Operations Center, which is located at 901 Adderton Street. “We have more water leaks in that building.” He detailed the severity, speaking of the gym floor. “[We] had to keep an inmate out there with us all night to mop floors and move buckets.”

He summed up the situation. “It’s only going to get worse from here. We were not aware until we started getting this amount of rain.”

Harmon noted overall preparedness. “This past Friday, we did do an after action review. We brought everybody back together out at the EOC, it lasted about an hour and a half, two hours, and we got good reviews.”

Harmon also praised the efforts of deputy EMA director Nancy Zelaya.

Harmon also told of relief efforts to surrounding areas that he and Chief Bivins had overseen. “In about two days, we were able to collect several trailer loads of water, over a $1,000 worth of meats and canned goods, and myself along with Chief Bivins we loaded up and we went to Hazlehurst and we supported that fire department with food. They didn’t know where their next meal was going to come from until we got there.”
He also mentioned supporting the fire department in the midst of water outages. “We did send one of our tankers to Hazlehurst for five days.” He stated that they should expect reimbursement from FEMA for the use of their tanker and manpower.

He also reported on an active shooter lockdown drill by the Sheriff’s office at the Sumter County Schools. “We had probably 30-plus that were involved in that from School District, Sheriff’s Office, Fire Department, City, County, I think they did an excellent job.” He mentioned a representative of GEMA was also there.

County Administrator Douglas Eaves addressed the Board with concerns about Station 6. “We’ve had several issues out at Station 6 on Rucker Street that are effecting the safety and working conditions of our employees in an unfavorable way.” He told how there were asbestos floor tiles that were cracking, and he told how there was asbestos in the ceiling. While he stated that it wasn’t an issue with the floor tiles, the asbestos in the ceiling could cause significant issues. “The one in the ceiling is the asbestos that does break up and become airborne.” He also noted significant plumbing issues. He stated they would have to decide the building’s future. Harmon stated Station 6’s location effected ISO ratings, which affect insurance.

The Board of Commissioners then discussed the future of the Sumter County Livestock facility located on Southerfield Road. The County currently leases the facility to a company whose lease ends this year and who does not want to renew.

Commissioner Clay Jones noted the facility is in his district. He stated he had received advice from a local farmer, and was informed that large beef cattle operations were moving to two or three Counties in the State, and finding someone to rent it could be difficult.

Reid commented on the situation. “There’s a couple things in agriculture, when you sell it, you have to trust those people.” He told how the reputation of the operator was important.

Finance director Lomenzo Rheddick addressed the Board. “Based on my observation of this fund, it looks like the debt service, the principle on the debt service we budgeted in 2024 lower than what it usually is. Usually we budget 370, or well in 2023 we budgeted 370, but for some reason we only budgeted 214,000 which caused a shortfall of about $168,000. So that’s what kind of threw the fire fund out of balance.”

After the meeting Eaves explained details. “It was the fire fund payment on the equipment note. We had the funds but for some reason when they did the budget last year they did not budget the full amount. We just had to do amendment to make budget match actual expenditure.”