Hamilton County to have all Stadiums inspected

Friday night football is about more than the game.  It is the lights, the environment, the energy at a home stadium …. East Ridge won’t get that true home game experience this year as the Pioneers find themselves homeless after Raymond James Stadium was condemned. Now, the county is jumping into action to check the status of other area facilities.

"After the East Ridge incident, we thought it would be a good idea to see what we have out there and make sure everybody is safe."

 The first phase is to check all the area facilities and have structural engineers check them out… starting with the ones in the worst condition.  It’s hard to map the next step, because until all of the checks are completed, you don’t know what needs to be fixed.

"First thing we are going to do is gather all the information together.  We don’t really have a plan going forward, yet we just want to see what we have and get an approximate cost and go from there."

With all of the Hamilton County schools having there own football stadiums and of course it being football season, the process of having each one evaluated will take some time.

"We hope to have it all finished before the 1st of the year, so before January we hope to have all of the stadiums looked at and reports back from a structural engineer."