By Sheriff Scott M. Kent

On July 10th, 2013, Crawford County experienced a series of severe storms, which brought heavy rains and strong winds to the area. Normally when storms of this magnitude come through, it’s the community that looks to the local safety forces for assistance. The Sheriff’s Office found itself in a unique position during this storm.

Our office lost power around 3:30 PM. Our emergency generator automatically started, supplying electric to the building. It ran for approximately 20 minutes, and then shut down. At this point, our building will run on battery backup, giving us a short window for power to be restored or to restart the generator. Maintenance tried to get the generator back up and running, but the diesel engine would not start. It would later be discovered that driving rain had blown through the louvered housing and rainwater was being pulled into the engine through the air filters.

The Sheriff’s office requested assistance from the Crawford County Emergency Management Office and the Bucyrus Fire Department. EMA Director Tim Flock and Deputy Director Jette Cander set up the Emergency Operations Center, and a temporary communications point, at the Bucyrus Fire Department, so that the Sheriff’s Office dispatchers had a point of communication, in case the battery backup to the building went down.

Battery backup will run our operations for a short time, and when the batteries were drained, dispatch personnel responded to the Bucyrus Fire Department to operate radios. As 911 communications went down, all calls automatically reroute to Morrow County’s answering point and information was passed back to Crawford County, so that Emergency Services could still be dispatched.

A call was made to the Buckeye State Sheriff’s Association Director Robert Cornwell, who in turn made a call to Ashland County Sheriff, Wayne Risner, and requested that one of the BSSA’s mobile command vehicles be sent to the Sheriff’s Office. The Buckeye State Sheriff’s Association purchased 10 vehicles and strategically placed them throughout the state of Ohio to be used during large events and emergency situations just as this. When the mobile command center arrived at the Sheriff’s Office, it was programmed to Crawford County’s emergency frequencies and radio contact was restored.

Several staff members from the Sheriff’s Office stayed over, and other staff came in early to maintain security at the jail, as well as responding to calls for service, and to just help out as needed. Power was restored around 8:00 PM, and the Sheriff’s Office was again operational with some equipment still down. Major Chad Filliater, Technical Coordinator Diana Jones, EMA Director Tim Flock, along with Century link spent several hours restoring 911 communications.

What we learned from this experience is that regardless of what nature throws at this county, we can still function by adapting to the situation and provide efficient emergencies services to the county.

I am very proud of the employees here at the Sheriff’s Office as well as the other agencies that assisted through this entire process. Their dedication and commitment to serve this community did not go unnoticed, and I wanted to publicly thank them for their dedication.  The residents of Crawford County have a group of emergency services personnel that they can be proud of.

As of Friday at noon, we are fully operational again.