BENTON -- Volunteer fire departments in Scott County will hone their search and rescue skills this fall.
During the regular Scott County Commission meeting Tuesday, commissioners discussed with Joel Evans, county developer, two upcoming events fire fighters in Scott County will participate in related to search and rescue.
Fire fighters from volunteer fire departments in the county will first participate in a search and rescue class scheduled for Oct. 18-19 at the Jackson Middle School in Jackson.
"It is a part of the Jackson fire school; it's an annual event," Evans said.
"After that training, they are going to team up with the Scott County Search and Rescue K-9 Unit to do a joint training-mock search on Oct. 25," said Commissioner Ron McCormick.
"What that's going to do for them is basically help them understand how to work closer with the canine unit," Evans said. "We've done some training in the past in a classroom setting where different departments plan to work together, we've just never done an actual live training together."
Evans said the location for the joint training-mock search is still being worked out. "We're working on a couple of different sites that we don't have final approval on yet," he said.
The Scott County Search and Rescue K-9 Unit is nationally recognized and has extensive training in search and rescue, according to Evans.
"Fire fighters as a whole are normally trained in search in rescue," said Marshia Morton, captain of Scott County Search and Rescue K-9 Unit. "Classes of this magnitude just kind of reinforce what they should be doing anyway."
"Our goal is to put the two disciplines (fire fighting and search and rescue) together," Evans said, "to best utilize the assets of each."
Morton said this training session will also "help different departments become more familiar with each other and be more comfortable working with each other in times of crisis."
In other Scott County business Tuesday, Evans said the county has received two more project worksheets from the Federal Emergency Management Agency related to flood damage.
"One was for approaches on a bridge on County Road 204. That was $6,055.12," he said. "The second one was for damage to gravel roads in the northwest portion of the county. That was $16,747.69."
Evans explained that project worksheets are documents filled out by a FEMA specialist in the field which describe pending work or work to be completed on damage. The project worksheets are first approved here then sent to FEMA's Joint Field Office in Jefferson City for final approval.
Evans said this brings the total for projected worksheets submitted as of Tuesday to just under $150,000.
"We'll probably have a half dozen more PWs of varying amounts," he predicted. "That's all related to flooding."