EMA shares behind-the-scenes look at operations center

MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — The Jackson-Madison County Emergency Operations Center gave an inside look at how they monitor conditions across the area.

“These situations where we go under a tornado watch, we do what is called an EOC activation. That’s where we bring in emergency support functions and we work ourselves through the storms,” said Madison County EMA Director Jason Moore.

According to Moore, this will be an ES4, ES8, and ES13. This is where police, fire, and medical will be in the building observing the severe weather. Moore told us what they use to monitor the weather.

“We just use normal weather station type applications, is all that we really use. We use a service that NWS provides, the National Weather Service. And then we have a few other applications that 911 has purchased and let us use for these certain types of events,” Moore said.

Moore shared that they never know how long they will be keeping track of the weather.

“If the storm comes and goes with no damage, it was light, we may be here an hour, we may be here two hours. If it’s something significant where fire and police have to go out and check certain locations, I mean we could be here eight hours,” Moore said.

Moore expressed the danger of severe weather and recommends everyone stay safe and seek shelter during bad weather.

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