Perry Council hires disaster preparedness firm

City Council voted Tuesday to spend some money it hopes will be for naught.

The council approved a contract of $420 per month for Agility Recovery to provide services to the city in the event of a natural or man-made disaster. The company comes on short notice with an array of equipment and mobile buildings to keep City Hall and emergency services in operation in the event those buildings are destroyed.

“I think it’s a good idea, myself,” said Councilman Willie King. “We can’t determine when we are going to have a bad day.”

Fire Chief Joel Gray said there are just two other vendors in the country that provide the same service, but those two company operate under Agility.

“You would be paying somebody to mark something up that you can get at the base price now,” he said.

The contract runs until the end of the calendar year, then would renew automatically annually unless the city gives 60 days notice that it wants to terminate the agreement. Gray said the company will notify the city in advance if the price is going up in the next year so that it can decided whether to terminate before the 60-day notice period is up.

Gray said he contacted cities that had used the service and needed it. One was West Liberty, Kentucky, which was struck by a tornado. Gray said the “debris was still settling on the mayor’s head” when the company called immediately after the tornado struck.

“They had been tracking the weather front and called and asked them if they needed help,” he said.

The service for Perry will apply only to City Hall and the police department. The company would respond is anything disrupted the ability to operate out of the buildings, which could include major destruction to the buildings or a prolonged power outage.

This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 7:17 PM with the headline "Perry Council hires disaster preparedness firm."