SCOTT COUNTY, Ind. — The Scott County Sheriff's Office is in the process of setting up three military tents within the county. One tent is being set up in the jail parking lot, the others are planned to go up at the health department.
"We're just being prepared and that's the name of the game now," said Scott County Sheriff Jerry Goodin.
According to Goodin, the tents are being put up as a precautionary measure as COVID-19 cases spread across the nation.
"We want to make sure we're doing everything we can do to keep every single citizen in Scott County safe," he said.
The tent in the jail parking lot can house at least 20 people according to the sheriff and can serve multiple purposes.
"We can use them for quarantine for officers, quarantine for prisoners. We can use them for possible drive-thru testing."
Sheriff Goodin says the tents will be used for other disasters or emergencies in the future as well. They're going up now to make sure deputies are prepared to use them.
"To be prepared means to be trained. It's that simple," said Goodin. "We need to make sure that we know how to set them up, where the proper locations need to be where they're set up if there's any glitches."
All of this equipment will stay up throughout the coronavirus pandemic at no cost to taxpayers.
"Just in the tent that's here set up at the jail, there's probably 200,000 dollars worth of equipment that we got for free from the military," said Goodin.
He says it's been a collaboration with multiple agencies to get the equipment in place, but he believes it will put Scott County in a place to fight whatever comes next.
"We're trying to stay on top of it and that's the best thing we can do," he said. "We're excited about having them. We are leading the way, quarantining and making sure Scott Countians are safe."
RELATED: Real Time Updates | Louisville sees largest single day increase in positive coronavirus cases so far
►Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users.
Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.