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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.(WDEF)- Sixty firefighters among 16 different agencies made their way to Chattanooga this weekend for an extrication class that is vital to saving many lives.

“When you have a vehicle, you know, collision, and if somebody is pinned in, they can’t come out and get out. Then we have specialized tools to where we can pop the doors, nobody can cut the metal and stuff like that to where we’re taking the metal away from the patient to remove the patient safely out of the vehicle,” said Chattanooga Fire Department Lieutenant Chadd Nichols.

This event is the first in person training session since 2018.

Planning for the event itself takes months of preparation and help from different local businesses.

“We have about 60 cars, and all those cars come from a local place downtown. A lot of logistics goes into this, like I mentioned Yates Wrecker was here as well. So just setting all of this up and getting all these cars on site. But also like Jaws of Life, you know, the reps are here with all their tools. So a lot of equipment comes in this as well, where we couldn’t do it just an organization, we have to have those outside agencies come assist us as well. So a lot goes into it,” said Nichols.

The Lieutenant explained that for their training session this weekend, the instructors had a combined 250 years of experience.

“We teach them to simple techniques, but like the class this weekend is all about a little bit more of an advanced level. When we start thinking outside the box we have cars are on their top and we have to go in through the through the trunk we know when the tunnel when that’s one of our pits here, behind me, you see we have a car that’s been rested on a jersey barrier. It’s a little bit more advanced techniques where we have to do more advanced stabilization to gain access into that patient,” said Nichols.

He said that it is important for all of the agencies to learn to respond together being that if one is unable to make it to an incident, the other will step in.

“The importance of it is because we all respond together, we’re part of the tri-state mutual aid association. So just because we may get a wreck in Chattanooga, doesn’t mean we might not call Red Bank for assistance or East Ridge for assistance. So, having all of us on site and know how we need to go together, you know, taking the training and put it into a live you know, saying it helps out when we all understand we’re on the same level and understand our techniques,” said Nichols.

Looking ahead, the fire department plans to continue these training exercises for many years to come.

Inflation taketh away, but it also can giveth.

The first part of the phrase summed up the reasoning of Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp on the news last week that the construction of the Tennessee Smokies' minor league baseball park in Knoxville has increased significantly in price, but the second part seemed to be the intimation of other officials on the potential development around the planned Lookouts' minor league park on the former U.S. Pipe/Wheland Foundry site here.

At least, that's the way we see it.

On the one hand, it seems almost impossible to imagine that the local stadium with a 2022 estimated price tag of $79.5 million wouldn't increase in price once construction starts. The cost of Knoxville's park, already underway, is up $14 million from a year ago.

It's a point mayoral candidate Wamp made in July 2022.

"Rising interest rates and unpredictable costs of construction continue to pose challenges for their stadium," he said of Knoxville, "and we will encounter the same issues."

Undaunted, then-city of Chattanooga chief financial officer Brent Goldberg said at a September meeting of the city-county Sports Authority, "We're not coming back for $82 million or $84 million."

Still fearing inflation, the now-Mayor Wamp said in December, "I think you're probably going to see a massive change in the scope of the project."

On Tuesday, he said, "all signs point to a stadium here going tens of millions of dollars over budget just like the one in Knoxville is, and we don't have a champion like [Smokies owner] Randy Boyd who will cover the overages."

Where the Smokies were able to count on significant money from the state and an owner who has pledged to cover construction cost increases, the Lookouts don't have either. And there has been no public discussion about money coming from the state this year, an idea that then-county and city officials thought was plausible a year ago.

Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly, though, looked at the down-the-road payoff of development around the stadium and how inflation might be friend rather than foe.

Property tax revenue from private development around the stadium is slated to pay off 58% of the debt for the project, but the city mayor believes revenue could soar above amounts once hoped for.

"There was some anxiety about how much development can we count on," Kelly told this newspaper. "Well, I think it's safe to say we're going to blow the doors off the early estimates anyway. The percentage of that that we dedicate to the stadium, we want that to be as little as possible for the taxpayer's interest. But if it weren't for the stadium, there wouldn't be the development."

While inflation will increase the cost of construction of the park and the development around it, it also is likely to increase the taxable value of the property.

That's because the little talked about problem with inflation -- especially by members of the Biden administration -- is that inflation itself may come down (and has a little), but prices don't fall commensurately.

But don't take our word for it.

"When people say inflation is easing," a 2022 CNN Business article concluded, "they don't mean that groceries are getting cheaper. They mean that they're not going up as much each month. It's very rare to enter a deflationary period, and the government likes to avoid it if possible as it usually indicates that the economy is cooling way too rapidly."

"Consumers won't feel immediate relief even as the inflation rate slows because many of those elevated prices are likely here to stay," Michael Ashton, managing principal at Enduring Investments in Morristown, New Jersey, said in a 2022 USA Today article. "The price level has permanently changed."

"When those problems get resolved," Marketplace wrote in 2022 of supply chain, shipping or pandemic problems, which have been said to have been some of the causes of inflation, "will prices come back down? The answer is ... no. For most things -- like meals at restaurants, clothes, or a new washer and dryer -- prices are not going to come back down."

Given that reality, and what it will mean for the private development surrounding the stadium, Kelly said this:

"We are feeling increasingly comfortable that the project as a whole will comfortably foot the bill for the stadium," he said. "That being said, we are also trying to be as good of stewards of taxpayer dollars as possible and stick to our original commitment."

If we're to look ahead in our crystal ball, then, we are likely to see that Wamp was justified in warning the original stadium price would increase -- as he warned against the project in the first place -- but that the surrounding development down the road not only can pay for the stadium but also help fill local coffers for the government services people already have come to count on.

At least that seems to be the lay of the land in the month before groundbreaking for a new Lookouts stadium is scheduled (though may not happen until a little later).

Tennessee has 95 counties, and there used to be a 96th.

Known as James County, it was a tiny sliver of a county east of Hamilton and west of Bradley. Formed after the Civil War, it was done away with shortly after World War I.

The story of the rise and fall of James County starts with the larger county to the west of it.

You see, Chattanooga was not the original county seat of Hamilton County. Its original courthouse was in Dallas, on the west side of the Tennessee River and close to the middle of the county. (Yes, that's right – there was a Dallas, Tennessee, before there was a Dallas, Texas!)

In 1839, after the Cherokee Indians were forced out of Tennessee, real estate developers created a new town across the river from Dallas, on land that had previously been the plantation of Cherokee Chief Joseph Vann. Promoters hoped Vannville would become the terminus of two important railroads in the works at the time -- one coming up from Georgia, the other down from Nashville.

Things went well at first. As people began moving into the new community, the town was renamed for William Henry Harrison, who was elected president in 1840. Sure enough, Hamilton County moved its county seat from Dallas to Harrison.

However -- as I pointed out in a column a few months ago -- engineer Stephen Harriman Long chose Chattanooga rather than Harrison as the destination for the Western and Atlantic Railroad.

In the 1850s, the riverside community of Harrison had a courthouse, jail, ferry, two hotels, three churches, an academy, a newspaper, but no railroad. Chattanooga, meanwhile, had rail connections to Nashville, Charleston and Memphis. Chattanooga grew much faster than Harrison and rose more in stature when tens of thousands of U.S. and Confederate soldiers fought over it during the Civil War.

In 1870, the voters of Hamilton County moved the county seat to Chattanooga.

County seats have been moved many times in Tennessee history. But the voters of eastern Hamilton County were especially bitter about the Hamilton County courthouse being moved to Chattanooga. However, to be fair, the geography of Hamilton County is varied and challenging. I'm not sure if anyone could have found a place to put the courthouse that would have pleased everyone.

The citizens of eastern Hamilton County petitioned the General Assembly to form a county. In January 1871, the state legislature passed, and Gov. Dewitt Senter signed, an act that did just that.

After the citizens of the area approved the change by a vote of 594 to 17, the county was named James County after the Rev. Jesse James, a Methodist minister and civic leader (who was unrelated to the famous outlaw).

Then came the setback that would eventually doom James County. Only three months after itwas formed, residents of the new county voted to place its county seat in Ooltewah, a stop on the Southern Railway southeast of Harrison. This heavily contested election divided James County politically and eventually led to Harrison re-joining Hamilton County (in 1893).

By the beginning of the 20th century, James County was long and skinny -- about 30 miles from north to south and only about 5 miles from east to west. It had three small towns -- Ooltewah, Apison and Birchwood -- and little in the way of industry and commerce.

The county had a woefully small tax base and was known as "Little Jim" to residents of southeast Tennessee.

A 1983 book by the late Polly Donnelly called "James County: A Lost County of Tennessee," contains wonderful detail about the history of James County. James County had bad roads and too many small public schools to operate efficiently. On top of everything else, its courthouse burned twice -- in 1890 and 1913.

These fires not only burdened the residents with the cost of building new courthouses, but they destroyed most of the records that exist from James County.

In December 1919, residents of James County voted 953 to 78 to abolish their county and be annexed into Hamilton County. Shortly thereafter, James County's records and bond debt were transferred to the Hamilton County Courthouse.

Today the old courthouse in Ooltewah is as a special events venue called the Mountain Oaks Manor.

Bill Carey is the founder of Tennessee History for Kids, a nonprofit organization that helps teachers cover social studies.

Chattanooga, Tenn. plans to stand up 86 new smart intersections downtown between 2023 and 2024 to create the largest Internet of Things network of its kind and pave the way for electric vehicles.

Together, the “living laboratory” of intersections, equipped with light detection and ranging sensors leveraging 3D-perception software, will be able to detect, track, and predict vehicle and pedestrian movements without invading privacy.

The Chattanooga Department of Innovation Delivery and Performance previously partnered with the Center of Urban Informatics and Progress (CUIP) at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2019 on a proprietary test bed of smart intersections called the MLK Smart Corridor. Once work is completed, the city’s smart intersections will number more than 100 and improve CUIP’s mobility mapping and tracking insights.

“The level of accuracy and actionability has enabled numerous advancements in how we can make our city safer, more efficient and healthier for the people who live here,” Mina Sartipi, founding director of the smart city and urbanization research center, said in a statement. “By expanding the project footprint, we will not only position Chattanooga as a pioneer of smart city technology but also create a blueprint for other cities around the United States to leverage the transformative capabilities of 3D systems.”

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How Federal Funding Is Supporting Innovation

None of this would be possible without a $4.6 million Advanced Transportation Technologies and Innovative Mobility Deployment (ATTIMD) grant from the Federal Highway Administration. In its award, the FHWA specifically noted the city’s intent to use the resulting smart transportation management system to plan electric vehicle charging stations in busy locations and monitor their subsequent use.

The 3D-perception software further relies on machine learning with weather-filtering capabilities to analyze granular, real-time data and predict accidents and wrong-way driving, as well as to understand traffic flow and interactions. In this way, CUIP and Chattanooga hope to optimize routes to alleviate traffic congestion and reduce emissions.

ATTIMD “grants promote innovations that help expand access to transportation for communities in rural areas and cities alike, improve connectivity and prepare America’s transportation systems for the future,” acting Federal Highway Administrator Stephanie Pollack said in a separate statement. “Chattanooga’s project will use the grant to facilitate access to EV charging stations and support clean transportation.”

EXPLORE: How Jacksonville, Florida is using tech innovations to improve mass transit.

Chattanooga Aims Beyond Initial Expansion

The city could continue to scale its smart intersection network outward beyond 2024 if its success and funding continues. The FHWA previously awarded $2.6 million to the Tennessee Department of Transportation in 2020 for artificial intelligence-powered decision support tools for integrated corridor management along Interstate 24, which ends in Chattanooga.

This time around, Chattanooga’s was one of 10 intelligent transportation systems to receive grants totaling $45.2 million.

“With these grants, the Biden-Harris Administration is helping communities deliver modern transportation systems that connect people to where they want to go more affordably, efficiently and safely,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in the statement.

The Chattanooga Mocs men's tennis team earned a 6-0 victory over in-state foe Austin Peay on Saturday afternoon in Clarksville, Tenn., at the Governors Tennis Courts.

Following the win, Chattanooga improves to 9-4 this season. Austin Peay drops to 2-7 following the loss.

"This was a solid road win," said head coach Chuck Merzbacher. "I'm proud of these guys and how they are handling adversity.

"We are looking forward to heading down to Charleston to work on our games.

We want to be playing our best as SoCon matches approach."

Chattanooga (9-4) returns to action on Thursday, March 16, when it faces College of Charleston on the road at 3:30 p.m. ET. The Mocs will open Southern Conference play at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., on Sunday, March 19 at 10 a.m. ET.

Chattanooga 6, Austin Peay 0 3/11/2023 at Clarksville, Tenn. (Governors Tennis Courts) Singles competition 1. Sota Minami (APSU) vs. Kerim Hyatt (UTC) 4-6, 4-3, unfinished 2. Gabriel Castillo (UTC) def. Giovanni Becchis (APSU) 6-2, 6-0 3. Simon Labbe (UTC) def. Tom Bolton (APSU) 6-4, 6-2 4. Peyton Gatti (UTC) def. Javier Tortajada (APSU) 6-3, 6-2 5. Ryan Mudre (UTC) def. Bodi van Galen (APSU) 6-2, 6-1 6. Cortland Grove (UTC) def. Thiago Nogueira (APSU) 6-0, 6-2

Doubles competition 1. Giovanni Becchis/Tom Bolton (APSU) vs. Simon Labbe/Peyton Gatti (UTC) 5-2, unfinished 2. Kerim Hyatt/Kristof Kincses (UTC) def. Sota Minami/Javier Tortajada (APSU) 6-2 3. Ryan Mudre/Jordan McClure (UTC) def. Bodi van Galen/Hogan Stoker (APSU) 6-2

The women's tennis team saw its eight-match winning streak snapped during a 4-1 setback at in-state foe Austin Peay.

Following the loss, Chattanooga drops to 10-2 on the season and has its eight-match winning streak broken in the process. Austin Peay improves to 8-3 on the year behind its fifth-straight victory.

"We played a really tough APSU team today and just couldn't get anything going," said head coach Chad Camper.

"We hope to learn a lot from this and bounce back this week."

Chattanooga (10-2) returns to action on Saturday, March 18, when it opens Southern Conference play at Mercer. First serve is set for 10 a.m. ET in Macon, Ga.

Chattanooga vs Austin Peay 3/11/2023 at Clarksville, Tenn. (Govenors Tennis Courts)

Austin Peay 4, Chattanooga 1 Singles competition 1. Jana Leder (APSU) def. Jessie Young (UTC) 6-1, 6-1 2. Denise Torrealba (APSU) vs. Coco Bosman (UTC) 6-3, 4-3, unfinished 3. Melody Hefti (APSU) def. Caroline Gibbens (UTC) 6-1, 6-1 4. Sophia Baranov (APSU) def. Nicole Abel (UTC) 6-4, 6-4 5. Yu-Hua Cheng (APSU) vs. Lucia Garrigues-Melendez (UTC) 4-6, 3-3, unfinished 6. Rozalie Dohnalova (UTC) def. Asia Fontana (APSU) 6-3, 6-2

Doubles competition 1. Jana Leder/Melody Hefti (APSU) def. Caroline Gibbens/Jessie Young (UTC) 6-2 2. Sophia Baranov/Denise Torrealba (APSU) def. Coco Bosman/Lucia Garrigues-Melendez (UTC) 6-0 3. Yu-Hua Cheng/Asia Fontana (APSU) vs. Pippa Bosman/Nicole Abel (UTC) 3-4, unfinished

Order of finish: Doubles (3,2); Singles (5,6,4,2,3)