Marshal County EMA Health Dept. offers FREE eclipse glasses

Monday, April 1, 2024 at 6:14 PM

Marshall County Emergency Management Agency Director, Jack Garner gave the County Commissioners a quarterly update during Monday’s meeting.

During his quarterly report, Garner highlighted a couple of incidents and responses. On January 9th there was a bomb threat at Culver High School. It was one of over 100 threats to schools in the state that day. Jack was in constant communication with the administration. They conducted an after-action report to look at what went right and what went wrong. The next event was enacting a Travel Watch on January 22nd and 23rd and on February 15th the EMA director was called to a fire and hazmat situation near Culver.

Under Grants, Garner said the 2023 Emergency Management Performance Grant which reimburses about 50% of his salary was adjusted because of the few months after Clyde Avery retired and the county was without an EMA Director. The impact reduced the reimbursement by about $3,000.

Under Training, Garner said he completed the annual HSEEP-compliant pipeline safety training and exercise on January 9th. He said the schools also participated in a tabletop exercise on a Hazmat train derailment event that could have happened near Washington Discovery Academy.

Under Community Outreach, Garner spoke at the January Marshall County Volunteer Fire Fighters Association meeting. He spoke about his goals as EMA and how he can work with the various fire departments in the county.

Under Other Topics, the EMA Director completed the 2024 Hazardous Identification Risk Assessment. Garner said basically it is a state required report that details what Marshall County is vulnerable to. He said the statewide tornado drill was conducted on March 12th and all sirens eventually sounded. Garner said he has free solar eclipse glasses in his office at Room 207 in the Marshall County Building! He ordered 500 pairs and has distributed most to local fire and police departments along with the Sheriff’s Department. There are still 150 pairs remaining, so there's a limit of 2 pairs per household. The eclipse glasses can pick them up any afternoon this week between 1-4 pm. The Marshall County Health Department also has FREE eclipse glasses for the April 8th event.