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CANNONSBURG After 20 years of bouncing around the county, Boyd County Emergency Management has finally landed on a spot it can call home.
Nestled in the county road department garage, Boyd County Emergency Management now has a 12-station command center with multiple television screens and stations to keep track of ever-evolving situations on the ground.
Director Tim England showed off the new office at an open house Wednesday for members of the public and elected officials.
The primary role of the agency is to act as the finders and providers of resources for the men and women on the ground in the fire service, law enforcement and EMS, according to England.
The idea to house Boyd County Emergency Management was born out of the 2021 ice storm, while the agency was housed at the Westwood Fire Department. The idea was to have a central area as a command center and store equipment and supplies.
Judge-Executive Eric Chaney said one of the biggest lessons he took away from the 2021 ice storm was that “logistics is the hardest part of any operation.”
“This is a proactive response to a reactive situation,” he said. “We did what we had to do during that event, but we learned a lot of lessons.”
With the new set up — which started its operations in Fall 2022 — County IT Director Chris Hutchinson said it has the capability of essentially moving the county government to it in the event the court house had a long-term power outage or storm damage.
Being able to store equipment — which includes UTVs for rescues in the woods and at Rush Off Road, boats for swift water rescue, a trailer being readied as a mobile command center and a bus converted to a large scale ambulance capable of carrying 12 people — is also huge, according to England.
“Before, we had equipment stored outside or around the county at different fire houses,” he said. “Now, we have it all right here ready to be deployed.”
Boyd Emergency Management also acts as a warehouse and distributor of needed supplies — during COVID, it took PPE supplies and distributed them across the FIVCO Area.
To keep that status as a regional distributor, England said they built a secure storage area that can lock to keep those supplies safeguarded.
Mayor Matt Perkins, of Ashland, thanked Emergency Management for everything it does to “work for the betterment of our people.”
The agency is funded through an interlocal agreement between Ashland, Catlettsburg and Boyd County — Ashland funds 40%, Catlettsburg 5% and Boyd County the remaining 55%.
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