Gov. Bill Lee is facing questions about why a state of emergency was not declared before the remnants of Hurricane Helene reached Tennessee on Friday. Such a declaration could have enabled the pre-positioning of state emergency assets, including specialized personnel for communications and incident management.
When questioned during a press conference Tuesday about why this step wasn’t taken, Lee responded: “You don’t call for an emergency until you can, until you know there is one there. So the timing of that occurred with the timing of the emergency itself.” In contrast, the governors of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina all issued emergency declarations a day or more in advance of the storm’s arrival.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center had projected the storm to impact Tennessee a week before it arrived. During Monday’s press conference, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency Director Patrick Sheehan appeared to take responsibility for the absence of a disaster declaration, explaining that his input ultimately influenced the governor’s decision on the issue.
“That would be on me. The governor is looking to me as his emergency management professional, so I advise the governor on those things. Our forecast did not call for it. We, TEMA, and the State of Tennessee Government were talking about the potential dangers of this flooding, to individuals living along these rivers. And our EOC was activated, and we had people on the ground as the emergency was unfolding. If there is any concern about that, that’s me.”
So far, eight people in Tennessee have been confirmed dead with more fatalities expected. Currently, over 45 people are still reported missing in the state. Search and rescue efforts are still ongoing in several northeast Tennessee counties as flood waters have receded.
Meanwhile, TEMA is facing criticism for failing to provide bilingual services, particularly in Unicoi County. According to recent census data, over 6% of Unicoi County’s small population is Hispanic, many of whom were employed at the Impact Plastics plant, which was destroyed by the storm.
More: Helene’s flooding swept away 11 workers at a Tennessee factory. Now the state is investigating.
Gov. Lee acknowledged that potential language barriers were not anticipated by TEMA prior to their response.
“Whenever there’s an inability or a disconnect, like a language barrier that has not been anticipated from TEMA in this county, which we are not, you know, we’re not on the ground in this county until we have a tragedy, but whenever there is a disconnect like that, we want to address it immediately.”
More than four days into the event, TEMA officials say they are working to improve language and communication services for those residents.
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