Panola County will be one of the beneficiaries of a $352,171 grant recently awarded Three Rivers Planning & Development District by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) aimed at support and enhancement of information technology disaster recovery and resiliency efforts in Mississippi.

The state-of-the–art disaster recovery solution developed by Three Rivers will allow that entity to maintain a primary data center containing Panola County’s  information both in Tupelo and a disaster recovery or “mirrored” computer system in a secondary data center located miles away.  
“This vital information resource will benefit our local government partners, like Panola County, as well as the businesses and individuals they serve,” said Vernon R. Kelley, III, Executive Director of Three Rivers Planning and Development in Pontotoc. 

“We are going to be proactive rather than reactive in terms of disaster recovery and that certainly can significantly impact our county and residents.  Without our commitment to this project, county government functions potentially impacted, due to unforeseen disaster, include access to financial records, accounts payable, payrolls, tax assessing/collecting, court administration, Justice Court, car tags, purchasing and Sheriff’s Department access to court records,” explained Kelly Morris, District 4 Supervisor and President of the  Panola County Board of Supervisors.

“This technology will make Panola County more prepared for disaster from an information technology standpoint and will significantly decrease the amount of downtime following a disaster event,” Morris said.

 “Natural disasters can have long term adverse impacts on a community’s economy that are felt long after other physical damage has been repaired,” said Assistant Secretary  of Commerce for Economic Development Jay Williams.

Panola County is among several counties participating in this project including Lee, Itawamba, Newton, Monroe, Calhoun, Union, Pontotoc, Oktibbeha, Kemper and Sunflower Counties.
“Communities across the country are contending with more frequent severe storms, flooding and other disasters,” said Cole Flint District 5 Supervisor, Panola County.