Local law enforcement teaming up for Country Crossings

Central Point, Ore. — Up to 20,000 people are expected to attend the Country Crossings Music Festival each day. That kind of crowd requires a detailed plan.

The key to keeping everyone safe is making sure you’re prepared, and that’s exactly what Jackson County is doing using a joint incident command (JIC) structure. So should an emergency come up this weekend, there isn’t any confusion about which agencies should be where and what everyone is supposed to do.

“This is a big event, this is the largest concert or the biggest event that Jackson County has ever experienced and so really what we’ve done on this is something that’s been used on many other large events – especially fires – we formed a joint incident command structure,” John Vial said.

Vial is the director for Jackson County Roads and Parks to support an event this size – all hands are on deck. Everyone from fire, to law enforcement, roads workers, and even the concert promoters play a key role in the joint incident command structure.

“We can have all of our morning briefings everyday before the event begins, where we talk about traffic security and all the things inside this tent – you’ll see surrounding, we have all the maps of the venue, to help us with planning, we have schedules – everything is in this facility that we will need in order to pull off this event,” Vial said.

Vial said the three largest issues Country Crossings is dealing with are security, traffic and fire.

“Those three items kind of dominated the conversations and dominated the planning efforts,” Vial said.

The question is with multiple agencies having a hand in the pot – who’s responsible for what?

“The way the incident command structure works, there’s already someone in place,” Vial said.

Vial said the structure includes an incident commander, an operation section chief and a unit leader in charge of fire.

“So right off that bat, we know who’s in charge. They have a plan implemented so should we have a fire, instantly we know who to call and they know what the plan is to start the tactical operations to fight that fire,” Vial said.

Vial said if it weren’t for this plan, Country Crossings might not be possible.

“Bottom line is, you couldn’t put on an event like this without the collaboration and cooperation of all the agencies – it’s simply too large,” Vial said.

Incident command centers are most commonly used after a natural disaster or in the event of a major emergency. However, they’re important when so many people are in one spot because you never know what will happen. Jackson County said it has a plan for everything, including a mass evacuation.

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