John Coffelt, Editor

The Emergency Management Agency Board addressed during the May 28 meeting plans for this year’s Bonnaroo festival.

Manchester Assistant Police Chief Adam Floied said festival day parking this year has been moved to Bushy Branch near Powers Road. The field across from the old main gate was leased from Allan Howard and is expected to see 5,000 cars.

The move will shift daily ingress and egress to come in from Ragsdale Road and Highway 55 increasing traffic on that side of the festival.  

Floied said the Coffee County Sheriff Department has reallocated its assets to focus on the venue and a Highway Patrol reduction, leaving the MPD with additional traffic control duties.

He said the city has opened traffic control duties to city employees wanting additional overtime hours.

“Half the department is in the venue, the other half is handling traffic and normal calls,” Floied said. “Everybody in the department works 12-hour shifts, no days off.”

The MPD command center will be inside the festival with an auxiliary HQ tent at Ragsdale Road, Highway 55 intersection.

EMS to staff two ambulances

Coffee County EMA Director Allen Lendley said that Coffee County Emergency Medical Service will provide two ambulances to assist with transports from the site.  

Lendely said some of that time will likely be subcontracted out to area commercial ambulance services.

Hillsboro Volunteer Fire Department will provide fire coverage. Lendely said his department have worked in recent years to locate the fire department closer to the center of the festival.

Hillsboro VFD will provide an engine, a tanker, a brush truck and side-by-side ATVs modified to carry fire suppression equipment. The side-by-sides will be provided by Bonnaroo, while the other equipment is HVFD apparatus.

Manchester FD will provide mutual aid for Hillsboro, and Manchester firefighters will provide about 1,000-man hours of traffic control.

EMA prepares for the worst

Lendley said the joint Bonnaroo/EMA incident action plan is almost complete. There will be two tabletop exercises held Monday before the festival opens.

One will be Bonnaroo’s exercise, the other EMA’s, to work out any potential kinks in the event of a serious incident.

Coffee County Dispatch will again have an onsite dispatch center which has been successful in the past. Lendley said that additional road signage will improve dispatching first responders on site.

The committee estimated that the number of tickets sold are in the mid to high 80,000 range.         

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.