For every 116,732 people visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, one experiences an emergency and calls the park’s Search and Rescue Team for help. As the park’s popularity increases, so does the urgency of figuring out how to weaken that ratio.
“That’s what we’re trying to dial in,” said Smokies Emergency Manager Liz Hall. “Who is that one person, and what’s contributing to them being injured rather than someone else?”
Hall was hired in July 2020 to fill the Smokies’ first-ever emergency management position. She’s a law enforcement officer and oversees the park’s EMS and Search and Rescue programs, but upon her hire she was told that her main project would be to get a program up and running that could successfully reduce searches by 20 percent within five years of her arrival.