Shelby County has a new tool to help keep people safe and help ensure essential services get back up and running during a disaster.

The county Office of Preparedness just received a new mobile command center that will let local leaders keep working if the group’s headquarters is damaged during a disaster. The 36 foot long trailer might not look very special from the outside, but it’s packed with almost everything emergency officials will need to help them respond in a crisis.

A Memphis author will be signing copies of her children’s book “Tiddels’s Journey to Hoot Owl Canyon” during Storytime on the Square next month.

Here’s a description of the book from the publisher:

"When Tiddels decides to leave her mountain nook and make the journey to see her brother and sister, it takes a lot of courage, for she is a small mouse, and the journey is long. Will she have the courage and grit it takes to accomplish her quest? Will she have to go it alone?"

Pamela Miller-Ray will be at Square bean Coffee on Oct. 1 at 10:45 a.m.

From inside a home that’s been in her family for generations, a Collierville woman is helping preserve her town’s legacy on Facebook.

Melinda Cox Hall’s family has played an important role in the town’s history. Her great-grandfather, W.W. McGinnis built most of Collierville’s now historic homes and owned two businesses that are still in her family. As principal of Collierville High School, her grandfather changed the school’s colors to maroon and white in honor of his alma mater Mississippi State University. And her father was once the town’s mayor.

So Collierville and its history are in her blood.

“It’s always been a passion,” she said. “I’ve been collecting old photos of Collierville for about 20 years.”

And now, thanks to technology that her forefathers could never have imagined, she’s sharing those pictures with others. Hall started a Facebook page called Old Collierville earlier this summer and already more than 1,400 people have “liked” the page.