About The Georgia post. (Knoxville, Crawford County, Ga.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 24, 2013)
5 CC Recreation Baseball/ Ijr Softball Registration Saturday, January 26th at <*r- t ’ recreation fields, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Thursday, January 24,2013 2 Sections, 14 Pages County Ponders Which Project Would Be Best For CDBG $$$ A Peaches To beaches meeting was held in Roberta at the Chamber office last Friday. From left are RCCCOC Director Patti Temple, Sharon Greer - chair, Rebekah Cline - HHRTA, Georgia Tourism, Emily Rowland - Lamar County and Sheila Jones - Perry. Vendors Needed For 8th Annual Peaches To The Beaches Yard Sale Planning to do some or ganizing and cleaning out of your unwanted clutter? Then pack it up and join us as a vendor at Georgia’s lon gest yard sale in March. The “Peaches to the Beaches Yard Sale,” will take place March 9-10 along US High way 341, the Golden Isles Parkway. The 240-mile yard sale will link peach-growing counties in middle Georgia to the beaches of the Golden Isles, with stops in nearly 19 communities along the way. Thousands of shoppers are expected at the 8th Annual Peaches to the Beaches Yard Sale. The event will feature vendors selling everything from antiques and locally crafted items to traditional yard sale fare. The yard sale will begin in Bames- ville, Georgia and continue along US Highway 341 to the Coast. Culloden, Geor gia has opted not to partici pate in the 2012 event. The official group vendor sites in each community can be found on the official web site at www.peachestothe- beaches.com. Patrons will find vendors of all kinds as well as a “treasure map” at each official community site to help them locate all other participating offsite vendors throughout the area. Partici pating offsite vendors will be identified by an official vendor sign along the way. Shoppers are encouraged to only shop official vendors that display the official ven dor sign along Hwy. 341 and at the official group sites. These vendors support this worthwhile event and make it possible for the Golden Isles Parkway Association to continue promoting and or ganizing growing event each year. The Peaches to the Beach es Yard Sale will be held March 9-10 with the official hours being 8:00 a.m to 6:00 p.m. Some communities will be have varying hours so shoppers that plan to travel the entire route are encour aged to visit the event’s of ficial website for detailed information. Any one interested in be ing an official yard sale ven dor, either at the group site or an offsite location in any community can find contact information and applications online at www.peachestothe- beaches.com or contact Pau la Rogers, President of the Golden Isles Parkway As sociation at 229-868-6365. Locally in Roberta, please contact Patti Temple at the Roberta -Crawford Cham ber of Commerce by calling 478-836-3195. By Abigail Adams The Georgia Post Crawford County Commis sioners started their second meeting of the year, with the addition of several items to their agenda. Adding the busi ness of some surplus property that has been on the agenda quite a few times and the announcement that the Tax Commissioners office would be closed on Wednesday Janu ary 23 the board went on with their second meeting of the year to discuss the county’s dirt policy, receive some good news from Fire Chief Randy Pate and discuss the matter of the CDBG grant yet again. First on the agenda under announcements, Pate came forward with “a proud heart.” He announced to the board that the fire department now has foui" new volunteers. Neil Sims and Tyler Moroney (sta tion 1) and Jacob Gibb and Mathew Pate (station 6) all have passed their 95 hour class and live practical bum to become firefighters in the state of Georgia. Pate stated that it is very hard to get volunteers in a ru ral community because they are not paid. Usually from the training course the fire depart ment can hope to get at most two volunteers added to their roster so four is a very big achievement and Pate says the county should be proud of these young gentlemen. Three of the four were participants in the explorer program set up by Pate to help teenagers not yet old enough to volunteer leam to be firemen. “When you see a volunteer he is doing it solely for the love of his county,” Pate said. The board thanked Pate and sent their appreciation to the 61 members of the Crawford County Fire Department for all they do in the county. The office of the Tax Com missioner will be closed on Wednesday January 23rd. All three of ladies in the office are required to go to training and the 23rd will be the only day they will be able to do so. County manager Pat Kelly in formed the board that the rea son for the short notice was because the ladies were given very short notice themselves. The office will reopen on Thursday January 24th with regular business hours. CDBG has been a big dis cussion lately for the commis sioners as they try to decide what project would be best for the county if they were approved for the grant. One proj ect that has been discussed at length is the extension of county water into Sarah Hills Subdivision. The commis sioners worry that there may not be enough willing cus tomers in the subdivision. Vice Chairman Paul Chap man stated that he would like to know how many house holds would actually hook up to the county water once it has been extended. The board was in agreement that there may be other places that would have more people willing to hook up to the water system. CDBG will pay the hook up fee for each household that agrees to hook up while they are working on the project, but after the project has been completed the fee will be paid by the household. The board asked Kelly to further research the proj ect and other areas that may benefit from water extension before they made their final decision on the project. Kelly stated that the CDBG grant is not limited to water proj ects and he is open to other ideas but the board should know they only have a limited amount of time to make a See PONDERS, Page 10 Crawford County Board of Commissioners from left, Bobby Blassingame, Frank Hollis, Dean Fripp, John Thomas and Paul Chapman. Recruitment Meeting Held In Preparation For Pandemic Emergency By Abigail Adams The Georgia Post Do you know how your county will handle an emergency pandem ic? No? Well, Crawford County citizens can rest assured that their local Health Department is work ing to remedy that. On January 10th Crawford County Health Depart ment called an emergency planning meeting to look for volunteers for their pandemic emergency plan and to leam more about the plan itself. Crystal Morgan from the North Central Health District came to the meeting to educate Health Depart ment employees and other Public Safety employees on the Strategic National Stockpile and what needed to be done to ensure that Crawford County got their share of the stock pile if a pandemic situation ever arose. A pandemic is a situation when all citizens in an area become sick at the same time, examples being the Bubonic plague or small pox pan demics from history. Morgan used the anthrax mailings of 2001 after the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11th as an example in the meeting. The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) is twelve locations set within twelve hours of each district that stores medication and supplies for mass emergency medical situations. The SNS houses enough smallpox vaccine to treat every person in the country (legal and illegal) and put the responsibility to dispense the medications on a local level to local Health Departments. The supplies are deployed in what is called a push-pack. A push-pack is eight, eighteen wheelers with enough medication to treat 400,000 people. In order to receive the need ed medical supplies though local de partments are required to come up with a written plan to present to the CDC for approval. Otherwise the CDC will not release the assets of the SNS without a written plan. As anyone in Crawford County knows this community is filled with people ready to step up to the plate in the case of an emergency. What the Health Department needs though is a list of names of these people who will be there to help to let the government know that the county is prepared to take care of their own 15,000 citizens. The skeleton of the plan devel oped by Health Department work ers is to utilize the Elementary and Middle Schools as drive-thru dis pensing sites and to rely on volun teers for manpower to help get the needed medication to citizens. Fire Chief Randy Pate made the sugges tion that they should also come up with a delivery plan for those who may not make it to the dispensing site. With an anthrax attack health department workers have only 24 hours to dispense medications to their citizens who may have been infected. The incubation period for anthrax is 48 hours to 45 days with 7 days being the normal incuba tion time. Found in grazing areas mostly under mushrooms, anthrax can cause burning discomfort if it gets on your skin but if is breathed in it will cause flu-like symptoms and in almost 95% of cases, death. Most farmers innoculate their graz ing animals to prevent anthrax from forming in fungus that tends to grow in their waste piles. Morgan stated that though an thrax is found naturally, cases are very rare from exposure in this kind and that if there is a mass infection of anthrax it would be from a terror ist attack. A thimble full of anthrax can infect 10,000 people while it is airborne but it is polarized to be on the ground and once there has to be stirred up to become airborne again. “The heart of America is small town USA,” Morgan said of why she felt a terrorist would target a small community like Roberta. In discussions about the written plan it was decided to allow Jake Watson Crawford County EMA Director to take on the task of lay ing out the plan. After the plan is established the Health Department will be calling on the citizens of the county to come forward and volun teer for the 30-40 core positions that will need to be filled in order to send the plan to the CDC for approval. These volunteers will be trained on their positions in the emergency management plan and will partici pate in table-top exercises and in real time exercises to be sure that all problems with the plan are worked out. A meeting will be set in about a month to review the plan made up by Watson and to call for volun teers. If you would like to find out how to go ahead and volunteer for the emergency dispensing team give the Health Department a call at 478- 836-3167. Further details will be given on the next meeting.
