John Coffelt, Editor

A morgue, a hazmat-response trailer and other pricy emergency-response equipment requires shelter, but the current plan of placing some of those Emergency Management Agency items in the mothballed Coffee County Jail workhouse could jeopardize the certification of that facility in the event it’s needed for inmates.

During a lengthy conversation at the January Capital Outlay Committee meeting, Director of Coffee County EMA Allen Lendley pitched the idea of securing space in the old jail annex behind the former jail for indoor, temperature controlled storage for the estimated $200,000-worth of equipment. That project would require an insulated garage door and a ramp to be built, costing roughly $50,000, according to the single bid returned to county maintenance.

“We have a trailer that is leaking right now because it’s been sitting outside. We had a travel trailer that was given to us by FEMA, brand new, came out of Katrina, and before it left it was…(in poor shape),” Lendley told the committee.  

The items to be stored include a 22-foot command post and a 16-foot hazmat trailers. An agency four-wheelers and side-by-side are housed in an onsite outbuilding. The morgue is currently housed there, and a new larger one will replace it.

A key problem to conveying the annex to EMA would be that it is currently still on the books as a certified workhouse that can house inmates.

When Sheriff Chad Partin took office in 2018, he closed the workhouse and moved the trustees to the new jail, south of town on Highway 41. Partin said that move saves the county 12 corrections officers, especially important with the jail in a labor crunch.

CCSD Capt. Frank Watkins, a commissioner on Capital Outlay, said that the department was advised by Tennessee Corrections Institute that keeping the facility would, should the need arise, allow the move of inmates back without state fire marshal inspections and recertification.

Partin stressed he didn’t want to return inmates to the facility, suggesting the ideal situation in the event of jail overcrowding would be a workhouse located at the new jail. He said that in addition to labor, the logistics of transporting food and inmates is costly. Yet if the jail reaches its capacity of 400 inmates, the annex could be needed to free 36 beds at the jail. Partin did say that a new workhouse at the jail would be cheaper than adding the labor of jailers at the Justice Center workhouse.   

Capital Outlay Chairman Dennis Hunt suggested an outbuilding could be built in the parking area behind the Justice Center. Yet that paved space might be too cramped for the 60×40 foot building that would be needed.

He recognized the need to get the equipment out of the elements. 

Lendley said that EMA has been storing COVID supplies in the Jail Annex since 2020.

“Our morgue is currently in there as well,” Lendley told Capital Outlay. “It’s in part of the dressout area. There is a new morgue that’s ordered,” Lendley said.

The new walk-in morgue will hold 12 bodies instead of just the three that the current refrigerated unit holds. The three-body unit will soon be moved to Emergency Medical Service North Station in Tullahoma on Riley Creek Road.

“We’ve had to increase our morgue size because Vanderbilt Harton doesn’t allow us to put any bodies at Harton,” Lendley said. “They all have to come over here.”

The new unit is a 10×10 foot walk-in cooler with three trays, four beds on each tray, according to Lendley.

Commissioner Tim Brown suggested the county look to shortlisting the long-term plan to build a workhouse at the jail, which would free the annex for EMA use. Other members of the committee felt the metal building for the trailers would be a more economical fix.

Lendley noted however that the manufacturer of the agency’s hazmat suits suggest those be housed in a temperature controlled facility, which would require the addition of insulation and a HVAC unit to be include in the storage building.

Partin described a new workhouse as a “down-the-road” project, consisting of a low security barracks-style structure. He said a workhouse could postpone the need to add a multimillion dollar third pod addition to the jail.

Partin observed that the annex was not designed to be a shed. He said that the county has never had a proper emergency operations center, but one is needed from the ground up.

Hunt noted that the county will in the future liquidate the two health department properties in addition to the recently auctioned off museum property. Those sales could offset the costs of building projects.

The discussion concluded with motion to bring a design for a new workhouse before the commission. A metal building could cost about $50,000. A new workhouse could cost in the ballpark of $1 million.

Additionally, the area behind the annex might have enough open space to maneuver the trailer into a building.             

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.