Athens County Commissioners are concerned about the safety of elderly folks in Athens County
After recent deaths involving senior citizens in Athens County, officials discussed Tuesday morning an event they hope will combat the local trend of elderly injuries.
Fred Davis, the director of the Athens County EMA, stopped by the Athens County Commissioners that morning to tell them he scheduled the county’s inaugural Senior Safety Fest for May 21 at the Athens County Fairgrounds.
“We’ve had numerous car incidents in Athens County during the last year involving senior citizens, some ending in fatalities,” Davis said. “So we want to host this senior citizens day and have different organizations come in to help with the whole day. We are going to have state highway patrol come and do vehicle checks, also talk to them about wearing glasses when driving.”
Davis also noted that this day won’t just be dedicated to vehicle safety, he wants to help senior citizens with all areas of their daily lives.
“The health department and Ohio University would come in to conduct health screenings, on top of that we will have the sheriff department talk about scam calls and how to protect yourself from being a victim of one. And then we will have the fire department discuss smoke alarms and depending on your district they will even come out and install smoke detectors free of charge,” Davis added.
With the recent paranoia of an Ebola outbreak in Ohio and elsewhere, Davis said he and EMA workers will be attending an Ebola tabletop training session with the Athens County Healthcare Coalition on Thursday. Athens County Commissioner Chris Chmiel said he wants local Porta Potty haulers to get similar training.
“Basically it just comes down to basic hygiene, wash your hands,” Davis said.
Jessie Powers, a representative from Hocking-Athens-Perry Community Action Partnership, was also present at the meeting this week.
She was there to discuss the Federal Valley Resource Center Neighboring Facilities Improvement project in Stewart.
The goal of the project is to remove outdated foam located on the roof and replace with satisfactory foam. However, when workers began working and removing the old foam, they realized the job would require more work.
“The scope of the project had to be increased due to unforeseen repairs that were necessary. Basically when they removed some of the foam they saw that it was deteriorated to the point that they had repair more than was anticipated,” Powers said.
The additional repairs total $752.50, bringing the total cost of the project to a bit more than $16,200.
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