The Garnett City Commission recently approved plans aimed at developing public tornado shelters and an erosion plan for Cedar Valley Reservoir spillway. Anderson County Emergency Preparedness Director JD Mersman outlined the basics for the commission. He says the plan is designed to assure the Federal Emergency Management that the city has identified it’s major potential hazards and was working on a plan to rectify them. That way, the funds are easier to access if a disaster actually does happen.
Another major need was continual erosion problems at the Cedar Valley Reservoir. The threat of a continually eroding spillway could be a partial or full failure of the dam, flooding areas downstream including the south side of Garnett. Mersman says there were no absolute timetables for the plan, but the project list gave direction to the city and identified problems that are most important.
