The Warren County Sheriff’s Department is looking into purchasing an incident command center. 

At the County Corrections Partnership Committee meeting, Sheriff Jackie Matheny Jr. explained the need for a mobile command center. Last month, first responders conducted a mock school shooter drill and determined the need for a command center.   

“For the last few months, we have been meeting with the district attorney and having the mock drill and one of the things we have come up with is that we are probably in need of a trailer ourselves,” said Matheny. 

The fire on Harrison Ferry Mountain last year also exposed the need for a command center. The county had to use command centers from other counties and did not have control over how long they could use it. 

“It goes back to the fire up on a mountain. We tried to get a command center and we contacted our EMS director and it was like forever before the incident command trailer got to us. When he saw fit for it to go back, he made that call too,” said Matheny. 

The mobile command center would be a way the departments could organize and communicate effectively at different situations. It could be used in a variety of situations. 

“So, it is a good thing for us to have so we can act quickly. We can transport it from here to any kind of scene we have for a bad situation. It might be a homicide scene we need to take it to or a tornado. We don’t have anything like that and there are other things we want to keep on the trailer like radios, generators and things of that nature,” said Matheny. 

Commissioner Steven Helton was one of the firefighters who fought the Harrison Ferry fire and he said having a command center there was essential. He explained it allowed them to communicate with multiple agencies at one time and use each other’s radio frequencies. 

“A big problem in the early stages was command couldn’t talk to four or five different agencies until we got the command post set up,” said Helton. 

Matheny says the county needs its own, because he wants to use it when he needs it, not just when it is available to him. 

“If I need it for 24 hours, I need it for 24 hours. Or if we need it for two weeks, we need it for two weeks and I don’t need somebody coming in and saying send it back to Cookeville. It is not just readily available for us. Something else could happen and it might not be there for us to have,” said Matheny.

To pay for the command center, the county would appropriate prior year restricted funds from the sale of the previous RV command center which is $8,000 and $25,000 from the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Funds. 

The County Commission will be voting on this appropriation Monday night. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. and is at the Warren County Administrative Building.