Nearly 15 years ago, long before “COVID-19” entered the mainstream vocabulary, Limestone County Coroner Mike West warned that the county was not ready to handle an influx of pandemic-related deaths. Now that a global pandemic has reached Limestone, the county is fortunate to have so far avoided overwhelming its resources — but West reminded county commissioners Tuesday that the need for a morgue and additional body storage facilities remains.

Currently, he operates with mobile body coolers that can hold up to three at a time, stored at the hospital or a local funeral home. Unfortunately, West said Tuesday, only Spry Funeral Home is open to letting him put a body cooler in their facility, and Athens-Limestone Hospital is borrowing another.

West said the cooler at Spry tends to remain at capacity, usually with people who were visiting from out of town when they died and are now waiting to be claimed by loved ones.

The number of residents in Limestone County hasn’t gotten any smaller, either, and West said he’s having to deal with an increased number of fatalities compared to last year. Within the first six months of 2021, his department has averaged 16 to 17 cases per month, compared to 11 to 12 per month for all of 2020, he said.

The county is also on track to double the number of suicides this year over last year, following a nationwide rise in suicide cases, and “hospice patients are way up,” West told the commission. He expects the coronavirus pandemic will eventually lead to an increase in strokes and other issues that could further contribute to a rise in fatalities.

“At some point in time, we need our own facility with a bigger cooler that we can hold bodies in whenever,” West said, adding the facility would also need room for records keeping. As it stands, he keeps death records at his house due to lack of an office.

He suggested the Limestone County Commission purchase and modify an existing building or build a new facility on property already owned by the county. He noted the facility would have to include a prep room and storage space but could also include a presentation room for when families visit to identify a loved one.

Fortunately for West, commissioners agreed the need exists and needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. District 3 Commissioner Jason Black noted that in the event of a severe weather event, such as a tornado, the county could see a death toll much greater than the storage space and resources currently available.

“We could have been there very easily with this pandemic and all,” Commission Chairman Collin Daly said. “We could’ve outrun our resources very quick.”

Commissioners, West and county accountant Emily Ezzell discussed the possibility of using pandemic relief funds to boost the resources available. West said it was only a matter of time before new stretchers would be needed for transporting bodies, as the ones in use now were donated by the ambulance service.

“They’re old, but they work, and as long as they work, I’m good,” he said, but he noted one in particular was 25 years old and has a weight limit of 250 pounds.

“We need those ideas,” Daly said. “What I’d love for you to do one day is come up with a list of items that you think we should work to get.”

Daly said he’d personally like to see the coroner’s office get additional vans that match and have the coroner’s logo on the sides. Until recently, one of the vehicles used by the department was a pickup truck with a camper shell, which resulted in several complaints from families. That truck has been replaced with a Dodge Durango, but West admitted space for transport is still limited.

However, while each of these things were discussed as needs for the department that the county should — and commissioners are willing — to look into, there was only one item on West’s budget request for fiscal year 2022: new radios.

“All of the radios in our vehicles are old except for the last one we put in,” he told the commission. “… If any of those radios fail, we can’t (repair) them because they’re too old. They work, they function — as long as they function, I got no problem with it — but … they can’t get parts for those anymore.”

For the new radios, West requested $2,100 more than requested last year for communications equipment and maintenance, but to offset the expense, the budget request for salaries was reduced by $2,625 and no funding was requested for utilities. This brought the overall budget request to nearly $1,700 less than the current fiscal year budget.