Tennessee Emergency Management Agency
James Bassham, Director

The 2000s began with a computer "time bomb" scare (Y2K) which ushered in a whole new set of threats that had almost been non-existent before. Viruses, worms and other computer, internet or e-mail net problems began to proliferate. Other threats began to appear which were previously dormant, for example, many dams were built on karst topology and began to show signs of erosion causing fears of failure, new viruses began to appear that challenged health personnel (West Nile, H5N1 avian flu and H1N1 swine flu), and the climate of the globe began to apparently warm up which caused significant weather trouble, including more thunderstorms and tornadoes, hurricanes and typhoons, flooding and droughts, ice storms, forest fires and wildfires and other extremes in weather temperature. For the first time, dikes holding back piles of coal ash failed causing hazards for homes near the break and potential environmental dangers. Other threats appeared due to the growth of programs that were previously much smaller, such as accidents from increased activity at the entire Oak Ridge reservation and an increase of transportation of environmental wastes from K-25, X-10 and Y-12. New issues arose requiring emergency management involvement in the near emergency conditions that occur in fuel and water shortages, in potential epidemics or pandemics and developing weather that could potentially produce a hurricane and cause evacuations.

During the 2000s Tennessee was the host of evacuees from Louisiana after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Approximately 3000 people were housed in official shelters in both emergencies. Tornadoes and floods have continued to occur with increasing regularity along with an increase in hazardous materials incidents.

The 1990s brought with it the "reinvention of government." Perhaps no other agency was more suited to the "poster child" of this concept than FEMA. Upon his appointment as director, James Lee Witt set out to remodel the agency and to make it more attuned to the needs of the state and local governments. FEMA went from being the agency everyone liked to complain about to being one of the more responsive and capable agencies in the federal government - a complete, 180-degree turnaround from the 1992 Hurricane Andrew debacle.

Mr. Witt also changed the focus of emergency management so that hazard mitigation was now the foundation of emergency preparedness at all levels of government. Recognizing that it was pointless and costly to simply rebuild homes in areas that flooded every other year, his approach was to provide federal and state funds to buy out homeowners in these areas and turn them into parks, golf courses, and other facilities that, if flooded suffered little if any consequential loss. It was much cheaper in the long run, the theory is, to buy out and relocate a homeowner than to have to rebuild his home every other year. This mitigation cornerstone remains in place today.

Mr. Witt also streamlined the disaster assistance processes of FEMA so that now, when FEMA is called upon to provide temporary housing funds to disaster victims for example, it takes just a couple of days to get money to them. This stands in stark contrast to the 4-6 WEEKS it took just 8 years ago. FEMA has also shifted from requiring states to perform certain, specific things in exchange for the funding they receive from the agency, to a program that allows the state to decide which disasters and emergencies affect it most heavily, and develop a program that addresses those issues. This allows the states to concentrate on those types of situations it is most likely to encounter rather than those that are never likely to occur.

Tennessee, like many other states, began to see an increase in the number of major disasters that impacted it. Whereas the state had been averaging a major disaster declaration once every 18 months, the frequency of these events began to increase. Major ice and snow storms in 1993 and 1994, flooding in 1995 and 1997, severe weather in every year since 1995, and several lesser events made the latter half of the 1990s an extremely busy time for the agency. In 1994, the state's emergency management plan shifted from an "annex"-based, static document to one developed on the Emergency Support Function (ESF) developed by FEMA for its FRP. The state's new plan was concept-oriented and allowed for the flexibility needed to address the changing nature of disasters, and the flux that was involved in the day-to-day operations of state government itself. Tennessee was the first state to develop an ESF-based plan, and the plan was requested by several other states to inspect in the development of their own ESF-type planning documents.

Perhaps fittingly, the decade of the 90s closed out with the most prepared-for non event in history - the Y2K "glitch." There was a concern that many of the computer systems in the world that run everything from coffee makers to ATMs to the national defense mechanisms might not be able to interpret the last two zeros in a 2-digit date as the year 2000, instead believing it to be 1900. Thousands of "experts" flooded the media preaching gloom and doom and the end of the world or civilization as we knew it. Some people even bought houses way out in the backwoods, stocking them with huge quantities of rations just to be on the safe side in case anarchy ensued. Fortunately, through the dedicated work of thousands of computer professionals, little happened that required the attention of emergency services professionals. The State Emergency Operations Center was activated, however, staffed by about two dozen personnel just in case something did happen. Nothing did, of course, but the staff did enjoy watching the Y2K celebrations from around the globe.

The agency continues to focus on natural and common technological disasters. Today, however, the agency is also forced to focus on such things as domestic preparedness (counter-terrorism), critical infrastructure protection (protection of the state's transportation, utility, communications, financial, public health, and governmental systems) and a wide array of other threats that just ten years ago weren't even on the radar scope.

TEMA has always been recognized as one of the more proactive and well-managed state-level emergency management agencies in the country. Emergency services personnel come from all over the world to visit to see how we do things - Bulgarian and Russian delegations for example. It is our desire to continue that philosophy into the 21st Century.

With the creation of FEMA in 1979, the federal government consolidated several dozen emergency-related programs spread across a multitude of departments into a single entity. Its function was supposed to be the coordination of federal response to disasters and the provision of planning and programmatic assistance to state and local governments in the development of mechanisms to protect the civilian population from all threats. The consolidation of these programs, however, was only cosmetic in nature. Those personnel who had been associated with national security issues remained compartmented, and FEMA directors through the first Bush administration steered the agency toward "black" and "secret" national security programs such as continuity of government, relocation of executive branch personnel, etc. Response to civilian disasters and assistance to state and local governments took a back seat to these programs.

Those within FEMA's civilian programs, however, began to formulate a concept known as "Comprehensive Emergency Management" or CEM. CEM refers to the responsibility for managing response to all types of disasters and emergencies through the coordination of multiple agencies or entities. One of the concepts of CEM was the division of emergency activity into four "phases", specifically mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. These phases can be consistently applied across any type of disaster, whether it is man-made, natural, or even attack-related. The Integrated Emergency Management System (IEMS) was also developed during this period. IEMS emphasized the application of "all-hazard" planning for responding to disasters, and FEMA began to allow state and local agencies to focus primarily on natural and technological disasters that affected their communities, and allowed them to relegate nuclear attack planning to the back burner.

In 1984, a methyl isocyante leak in Bophal, India, killed thousands of people and focused attention in the United States on what kinds of chemicals were being stored in local communities. As a result of the Bophal tragedy and several high-profile chemical events that occurred in the United States, the U. S. Congress passed the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act in 1986 (SARA). SARA required any facility that manufactured, used, stored or processed certain kinds and quantities of chemicals to report information about them to local and state emergency officials, and this information was to be made available to the general public. This would allow community residents to know what kinds of chemicals were being used or stored near their homes, schools, and businesses.

Disasters, of course, continued to occur and began to attract much more intense media interest. Major hurricanes such as Hurricane Hugo and earthquakes such as those in Loma Prieta focused attention on the shortcomings in federal assistance to state and local governments. The overwhelming scope of these events focused attention on the need for a federal "response" role - a concept foreign to the recovery role that FEMA had long played. FEMA began work on a Federal Response Plan for a Catastrophic Earthquake in California. Over time this would evolve into a full-fledged, national government response plan known simply as the Federal Response Plan, or FRP. Unfortunately, the FRP had not been implemented prior to the landfall of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The federal response to this event, perhaps more than any other, focused attention on the need for FEMA to "reinvent" itself.

Tennessee, of course, followed the lead of the federal government in moving towards the all-hazard, integrated approach to emergency management. Programs were developed to assist local governments in developing emergency management plans and capabilities. This included a full-blown training program, and the development of the first, truly-integrated emergency plan for the state. This plan was known as the Tennessee Emergency Management Plan, or TEMP. The 1986 document became the basis for all emergency management plans and programs with the state and this remains the case today. A copy of the Introduction and Basic Plan for the 1986 document is available in the last frame of this section.

Following the Three Mile Island event, the nation's attention had been focused on preparedness for emergencies at nuclear plants. The implementation of NUREG 0654 by FEMA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission required states to prepare detailed emergency plans for events the nation's nuclear facilities. Tennessee was the first state to comply with the publishing of the Multi-Jurisdictional Radiological Emergency Response Plan for the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant (MJERP). The Sequoyah Nuclear Plant was operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, and in order to acquire its license to operate, TVA had to work with the state and local governments to develop an off-site response capability that protected populations and farmland from radiological contamination. Every year since, TEMA and a wide array of state and local officials and volunteers have undertaken a major exercise to test the plan's effectiveness.

Tennessee was slow to adopt the "emergency management" moniker, however. It wasn't until 1984 that the name of the agency was officially changed to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. Also in 1984, TEMA got its first civilian director. The appointment of Lacy Suiter marked not only the first time a civilian headed the agency, but he also became the first internal employee to head the agency. Mr. Suiter started with the agency in the 1960s as an Operations Officer, and rose through the ranks to be appointed by Governor Lamar Alexander as the head of the agency. Mr. Suiter would go on to serve three governors (from both parties), and then became an Executive Associate Director of Response and Recovery at FEMA, following President Clinton's appointment of James Lee Witt as the Director of FEMA.

In the early 1970s, under intense pressure from Governors of the states and others who believed that the concept of separated civil defense and emergency preparedness functions was outdated, the federal level organizations moved toward allowing the dual-use of civil defense funds and equipment to be utilized for natural disaster preparedness. In 1971, the OCD was renamed to the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency (DCPA), but retained its basic functions, and the OEP remained intact within the Executive Office of the President. DCPA continued to provide 50/50 matching funds for the "dual-use" concept of civil defense/emergency preparedness at the state and local level. The only visible change at DCPA was that their personnel would now assist state and local governments in developing plans for natural disaster as well as nuclear attacks. Despite the relatively peaceful relationship between the Soviet Union and the U.S., the decision was made to maintain a modest civilian defense program. Reorganization Plan # 1, April 20, 1970 transferred the responsibility for the CONELRAD system to the Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP) within the EOP. CONELRAD was also renamed the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS). OTP was later absorbed into the Office of Science and Technology Policy, also within the EOP (1978).

On July 1, 1973, Reorganization Plan # 2 took another step backward with the re-delegation of a wide variety of disaster and emergency preparedness activities amongst a tremendous number of disparate federal agencies. All coordination of federal agency response to major disasters was to be housed at the General Services Administration, specifically in the Federal Preparedness Agency (FPA), and GSA would also create several other internal divisions for other functions related to emergency preparedness. All coordination of federal disaster relief activities was transferred to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), where it was housed in the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration. HUD also housed the Federal Insurance Administration (FIA), which had been created in 1968 to provide flood, riot and crime insurance (in the wake of the race riots of the late 1960s). The Defense Department maintained the DCPA in its original form, largely unchanged by the reorganization plan.

The Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 also created two additional emergency preparedness organizations within the Department of Commerce. The National Fire Prevention and Control Administration (NFPCA) was to assist states and localities in the development of fire prevention and control programs, while the National Academy of Fire Prevention and Control (NAFPC) was to develop model training programs for fire service personnel. NFPCA later became the United States Fire Administration in 1978 (still housed in DOC), and the NAFPC and would become the National Fire Academy in that same year.

The 1970s saw a dramatic rise in the number of emergencies and disasters that affected the country's states and localities. The increasing presence of hazardous materials in local communities and in the transportation corridors led to serious hazmat incidents. Chief among them were the Bromine release in Rockwood, TN, in 1977 and the LPG explosion in Waverly, Tennessee, in February of 1978. The years 1973-1975 saw dramatic increases in severe weather damages, especially in 1974, where hundreds of people were killed in a series of violent tornado outbreaks across the Midwest. Major flooding events impacted Tennessee in 1977, there were a couple of major dam failures, and the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant experienced a major malfunction. For a brief period of time, the federal government allowed the states to treat natural disaster preparedness as their primary role with respect to the use of federal civil defense funds. This changed again, however, following the ascendancy of Gerald Ford to the Presidency, and once again, states were required to treat planning for a nuclear attack as their primary function.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and consolidated several dozen, disparate emergency preparedness and civil defense functions into a single entity. Although that sounds efficient, many of these organizations continued to function as their own organization within the new agency, and for many years the "civil defense" and "national security" planners were distinct from those that assisted state and local governments in preparing for and responding to disasters. FEMA and its programs would become the basis for state and local emergency preparedness and civil defense programs for the next 20 years. Like most other states during the early and mid 1970s, the state of Tennessee also came to the realization that preparation for natural and now technological disasters should take priority over population relocations and sheltering surveys. Several of those disasters that attracted the attention of the nation occurred in Tennessee. The TCDA didn't wait until told that they could use funds for other purposes. In 1978, following the floods of 1977, and with the lingering after-effects of the tornadoes in 1974 and the Waverly explosion, the state developed its first "disaster response" document. With the release of the Tennessee Disaster Assistance Plan in 1978, the state now had a formalized process for responding to and recovering from disasters that affected the state. The plan had been under development for almost two years, and had been funded by a $250,000.00 grant from the FDAA (HUD), and was signed by Governor Ray Blanton in June of 1978. Governor Blanton had also issued an Executive Order (18) in 1975 designating the Tennessee Office of Civil Defense as the lead agency for coordinating the state's response to all disasters and emergencies that affected the state or its citizens.

Executive Order 18 also required that each state agency designate an Emergency Services Coordinator (ESC) and an alternate to serve as liaison to the TCDA during disasters and emergencies. Tennessee was the first state to formalize this process, and it allowed TCDA to reach into an agency to find someone who could assist a local community without having to call dozens of people in perhaps several different counties before they could arrange for help. TCDA could now contact this one person, explain to them what was needed, and that one person had the onus and the authority to find someone in his organization that could assist the local community with whatever it needed. The ESC concept continues to this day.

It was also during the late 1970s that TCDA found itself involved in several unique events. Among them was the funeral of Elvis Presley in Memphis in August of 1977. Presley had died unexpectedly, and there was a tremendous crowd presence that began to swell immediately following the announcement of his death. In the days that followed, more and more people surrounded his Graceland Mansion and clogged the roads in the area. With the advent of the funeral, Memphis officials feared that they would not be able to effectively control the traffic and the crowds, and asked for assistance from several state agencies, including the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the Tennessee Department of Transportation, and the Tennessee National Guard. The State Emergency Operations Center was activated and coordinate the provision of almost 1000 state personnel to assist the Memphis authorities.

National Guard involvement in the police and fire strikes in Memphis and in Nashville in 1978 also led to the activation of the state EOC. The SEOC coordinated the provision of troops, law enforcement personnel, and supplies to the city administration in both events.

Sadly, the 1978 explosion at Waverly also represents the only time that a TCDA/TEMA employee has been killed in the line of duty. Mark Belyew, a communications technician was providing radio communications coordination at a command post at the time of the LPG tank explosion in that city. The Planning and Communication Annex building on Houston Barracks is named in his honor. The agency's current director, John White, was also critically injured in that explosion. Coincidentally, the agency had developed a draft hazardous materials response plan prior to Waverly (in response to the Bromine leak in Rockwood), but had yet to enact it. The Planning and Communication Annex building on Houston Barracks is named in his honor.

Despite all of these developments, the general public at large had begun to grow weary of the "Duck and Cover" clips, and the occasional discussions about civil defense at local community group meetings. There was growing realization that an evacuation of major cities in the shadow of a nuclear attack was not feasible, so the primary emphasis continued to be centered around fallout shelters.

In 1961, however, President John F. Kennedy, sensing that the overwhelming majority of state and local governments were doing little if anything to develop a sheltering capability, decided to make civil defense preparedness once again a central issue. Kennedy once again separated out "civil defense" functions and other emergency preparedness functions into two agencies. Executive Order 10952 moved the CD functions into and Office of Civil Defense (OCD) within the Department of Defense, and assigned to the Secretary of Defense. A full-fledged nationwide shelter program, funded by the federal government was developed, resulting in engineering studies of existing structures, the acquisition and deployment of shelter stockpiles (i.e., the crackers and other goods one could find in the basements of these so-designated facilities). This moved "civilian" defense into the military arena, but it was widely believed that the Defense Department had the resources to undertake such a massive logistics program associated with the development of the sheltering program.

What remained of the emergency preparedness programs was transferred to a newly created Office of Emergency Planning (OEP), which became responsible for all civilian emergency preparedness activities, including resource utilization, disaster relief, economic stabilization, post-attack rehabilitation, and continuity of government functions. Still we have the separation of CD and other emergency functions at the federal level. In 1968, this office was renamed the Office of Emergency Preparedness. The Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962 woke everyone up to the renewed possibility of a nuclear attack upon the United States. This incident served to bolster the Defense Department's budget requests for accelerated shelter program development, and this was reflected somewhat in the next budget. Once again, however, the following years would see a dearth of funding for such programs, especially given that with the removal of missiles from Cuba, and the newly developing war in Vietnam, there was once again little interest in the prospect of nuclear attack.

In August of 1966, the Tennessee Civil Defense Agency promulgated the Tennessee Plan for the Management of Resources. This plan was designed to formalize the manner in which critical resources would be managed by the federal, state and local government following a nuclear attack. In 1964, the federal OCD and OEP offices agreed to the framework for the management of the nation's critical resources following an attack - delegating the management of resources in the aftermath of such an attack. TCDA undertook an extensive review of the state's electrical and telecommunications assets, fuel supplies, food, industrial production assets, etc., and determined how they would be managed following a massive nuclear attack on the U.S., in conjunction with the federal management of nationwide resources. Governor Frank G. Clement signed an Executive Order [#28] on June 23, 1966, designating the Director of Civil Defense as the officer in charge of such coordination and planning efforts within Tennessee, and directed all other state agencies to coordinate their activities with the CD Director. Over the next several years, agency planners would set out developing lists of "critical facilities" that needed to be considered during planning for nuclear attacks and other emergencies that might involve resource shortages. Agency officials also coordinated the massive amounts of data related to the engineering studies and designation of shelters within Tennessee.

In 1967, the TCDA moved into its new emergency operations center, located at the Clement-Nunally Armory in south Nashville. This facility, housed on what is now called Houston Barracks, is the headquarters of the Tennessee Military Department, and the existing successor agency to TCDA still operates from there today.

On December 1, 1950, President Harry Truman created the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) [EO 10186] within what was called the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), attached to the Executive Office of the President. OEM's purpose up to that point had been largely to provide the President with a mechanism to monitor emergencies and disasters that affected the United States, and offered no direct assistance to state or local governments. Congress quickly picked up on this, and passed the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950 [64 Stat. 1245]. On January 12, 1951, the FCDA was made an independent agency of the federal government, and absorbed the functions of what had been called the National Security Resources Board (NSRB). The NSRB had been created by the National Security Act of 1947, and was created to "advise the president on mobilization coordination of the United States" during times of war, specifically the buildup of industrial capabilities and the stockpiling of "critical" national security materiel. NSRB also laid the groundwork for the development of CONELRAD, the emergency warning system predecessor to the Emergency Broadcast System (and today, the Emergency Alert System).

On September 30, 1950, Congress passed the Federal Disaster Relief Act, which was designed primarily to allow the federal government to provide some limited assistance to the states during times of disaster. This function was assigned to the Executive Office of the President (EOP), where it remained (in various incarnations) until 1973. The federal Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM) was created by EO 10193, on December 16, 1950, to coordinate federal mobilization activities (initially for wartime activities), and ODM inherited the disaster relief coordination responsibilities in another EO [10427], dated January 6, 1953. Another agency, the Defense Production Administration (DPA) was created by EO 10200, January 3, 1950, to exercise general control of the defense production program.

Confused? No doubt. So was just about everyone else at all levels of government during this period. The distinction between wartime-type civil defense activities and natural disaster relief activities and their attendant philosophies would serve to create friction in many different ways even through the 1980s. Civil defense workers were concerned with the protection of the civilian population from the effects of a hostile attack against the country, had "national security" status, and dealt with critical production issues, etc. Disaster relief was seen by CD workers as an unrelated, benign task best left to others.

In their original incarnation, Civil Defense programs sought to develop sheltering capabilities to house people in attacked cities. Civil defense planners, however, were also developing mass evacuation plans for supposed targets of the USSR. Planners naturally assumed that major cities, defense production facilities, major power plants, etc., would be targeted by the Russians in their attempt to take over the continental U. S., and sought to develop elaborate plans for the evacuations of populations from these areas. Detailed population and traffic routing studies were undertaken at all levels, including here in Tennessee, in an effort to determine how long it would take to evacuate a city such as Memphis for example. The entire population of the city of Memphis was to be relocated among some 30 counties in western Tennessee, eastern Arkansas, southeastern Missouri, and northern Mississippi. There were three main considerations that led planners to believe this would have been a viable option at the time:

1. The massive development and suburbanization of the country's cities had yet to begin in earnest, so there were few massive neighborhoods or population points in any given area outside the main body of the main city,
2. It was generally assumed that there would be a "buildup" of tensions between the United States and Russia (or any other country that might wish to launch an attack). Planners frequently spoke of this buildup in terms of weeks or several days.
3. In a worst-case scenario (i.e., no-notice attack), it would take at least 6 hours for a Russian bomber to reach the radars established by the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) along the northern portion of the country. There were no missiles with the capability of reaching the U. S at this time.

All of these combined to suggest to evacuation planners that mass evacuations of large cities could be undertaken successfully in the event of a war with Russia. A great many people at all levels of government believed that such evacuations were not possible, and Congress refused to provide any substantial funding for any civil defense program, let alone funds needed for major relocation studies. A good deal of the funding went toward the development of sheltering programs, including the study of existing buildings for use as shelters, and the development of concepts and guidance for the building of underground shelters at individual homes.

In 1953, under Reorganization Plan # 3 (June 12), functions of the former NSRB were removed from FCDA, and along with programs of the existing ODM, FPA, and other disaster and emergency relief responsibilities of the EOP, were consolidated into a new Office of Defense Mobilization, housed within the Executive Office of the President. The FCDA would concentrate solely on preparing the civilian population for a nuclear attack, while the new ODM would assume all responsibilities related to domestic emergency preparedness and development of the nation's civilian capability to ramp up and go to war. The CONELRAD program was transferred to a newly created office called the Assistant Director of Telecommunications, who was to be a part of the new ODM.

During the 1953-1958 time period, there continued to be arguments over whether evacuation or sheltering was to be the nation's policy regarding response to a nuclear attack. There was vigorous debate in Congress, in the Executive Branch, and even among individuals charged with the responsibility of managing the civil defense and ODM programs. The general public had largely grown tired of civil defense anyway, however, due to the political face put on by the Eisenhower Administration about maintaining a peaceful coexistence with the Russians. That would soon change, however. The development of intercontinental ballistic missile capability and the subsequent launch of the Sputnik satellite, along with the Soviet Union's explosion of a hydrogen bomb once again fueled fears of the potential for a Russian attack on the United States. This time, however, the evacuation planners had to confront the fact that a Soviet missile could reach the U. S. in a few minutes, and that we may not have "several hours" to carry out an evacuation.

In 1958, the major civil defense and emergency preparedness programs at the federal level were reorganized. Under Reorganization Plan # 1 [July 1, 1958], the FCDA and the ODM were consolidated into a single agency, the Office of Defense and Civilian Mobilization (ODCM), which was to be housed in the Executive Office of the President. It was during this period that the Federal Civil Defense Act was amended to allow the federal government to provide funding for civil emergency preparedness. The federal government would provide 50/50 matching funds to personnel and administration costs for agencies engaged in civil defense preparedness. The concept of a joint federal-state-local responsibility for civil defense and attack preparedness was also articulated in guidance distributed by the new ODCM.

Within Tennessee, the newly created Civil Defense Agency was hard at work in its headquarters office, located in Room 315 of the Cordell Hull Building. Based on direction and guidance from the FCDA, TCDA set out to develop massive evacuation plans for the major population centers in the state, Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Tri-Cities, and Alkor (Knoxville-Alcoa). The Governor adopted the policy that TCDA should be the central coordination point for all civil defense actions following an attack, and gave TCDA the authority to coordinate all the other state agencies' activities during such periods.

The culmination of this effort led to the publishing in 1958 of the state's first major planning document related to civil defense. Called the Tennessee Operational Survivability Plan, the 10-volume document laid out how the state would respond to a nuclear attack in excruciating detail. The plan called for each of the population centers to be designated a Civil Defense Operational Area (CDOA), each with its own command structure. The Governor and the Civil Defense staff were to be relocated to a facility outside of Tullahoma, Tennessee, and an alternate state Capitol was to be established at the old Ovoca Children's School in the same general area. The plan describes vehicle loads for anticipated evacuation routes, contains letters of coordination for the use of counties in adjoining states, and even details specific guidance on how resources were to be allocated to individual counties through the CDOA organizational structure.