Greene County Mayor Kevin Morrison says he hopes to be able to use some of the recently announced Hurricane relief funds from the state for construction of an EMS station in the Camp Creek area in conjunction with a new Camp Creek Fire Hall.
Morrison told members of the EMS Board , during their quarterly meeting Thursday the last minute bill that was passed during the regular session of the state legislature as Radio Greeneville News first told you last week , designating Greene County $3 million for Hurricane Helene recovery and future disaster mitigation.
He said Thursday “Of course, one of the great lessons learned was with the collapse of the Erwin Highway Bridge, we did not have or had relatively little emergency medical coverage south of the river. Since then, an ongoing today, thanks to the Department of Health, we have a fort set up at the Crossroads at Camp Creek, but with that money, and we’re examining that right now, is to co locate a new ambulance station with the Camp Creek Volunteer fire department. So I’ve been out to speak to the fire department about this. They’ve been bequeathed some money from the state estate to construct a new fire hall and with some of this money that we could potentially contribute to the volunteer fire Department for their station and c co-locate an ambulance at Camp Creek.
GREENE COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT IN THE FUTURE
We’re also looking at what that might take to also co locate an ambulance somewhere in the vicinity of the Caney Branch Volunteer Fire Department. We currently have one at South Greene, and the reason that this strategy is important at some point in time in the future, there will be a Greene County Fire Department. where the stations are manned, and the fire Services County wide. The most recent example that I can give you of that is Washington County is currently finishing up construction on an ambulance fire station and helpers across from the flea market. And that facility, of course, is is quite remarkable.
NEED FOR EMS “SOUTH OF THE RIVER” FIRST ADDRESSED AFTER THE SEPTEMBER FLOODING
Morrison had said in the mid-November EMS Board meeting the floods revealed the need to improve services for those living “south of the river” Morrison told the board at the time he would like to have a full time EMS station in the area and now it appears .
