Six candidates are vying for three seats in the Haywood County commissioners race. They fall in two tidy camps when it comes to their views on the county’s emergency management ordinance, making the issue a quick study for voters.

When passed in 2009, the emergency management ordinance was a sleeper, a bunch of government legalese that few paid attention to other than the emergency services workers who actually think about things like FEMA money and disaster declarations.

A $4 million public safety facility will be constructed at Haywood Community College over the next two years, providing police, fire and rescue workers of all stripes a state-of-the-art training center for simulations, drills and classes.

The HCC Board of Trustees formally voted on Sept. 6 to proceed with the project after nearly two years of planning.

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“It doesn’t look salvageable to me,” Sylva Mayor Maurice Moody told a full house crowd during an emergency meeting following the fire. 

Haywood Regional Medical Center is on its way to recovery after a small fire in its power room earlier this month knocked out the electrical system, closing the hospital and causing its 62 patients to be shuttled to hospitals in neighboring counties.

A telecommunications outage hit the Waynesville area last Thursday evening, knocking out cell phones, TV, Internet and even landlines for thousands of residents.

“One by one, across the county people are realizing on their own that they have no cellular services or voice or data communication tool,” said Greg Shuping, the Haywood County Emergency Services Director.

By Mark Swanger • Guest Columnist

Regardless of their magnitude, all disasters — natural or man-made — are local events and require an immediate, coordinated response from local government to protect public health, safety and welfare.

This function is called Emergency Management, and, in the aftermath of national tragedies such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, not to mention incidents like our own two 500-year floods in September 2004, many local governments have adopted ordinances to allow for a better, quicker response to disasters. These Emergency Management ordinances, which are heavily regulated through state and federal laws, give local governments the authority to quickly mobilize the resources needed to protect our citizens when the unexpected occurs.

Jackson County plans to build a $1.6 million state-of-the-art 911 call center and emergency headquarters along U.S. 441 south of Dillsboro.

When a rockslide shut down Interstate 40 through the Pigeon River Gorge in Haywood County three years ago, the N.C. Department of Transportation scrambled to clean up the massive slab that sheered off the mountain and then shore up the towering rock face against future slides.

The Jackson County Planning Board debated where to draw the line between safety and individual rights last month in its ongoing rewrite of steep slope rules.

Specifically, should driveways to homes on steep slopes have to meet safety standards?

The Haywood Community College Board of Trustees has given preliminary approval for the construction of a training facility for law enforcement and emergency service workers.