FAIRHOPE – When a major storm or other disaster threatens the area, first responders who will be needed as soon as conditions are safe cannot evacuate.
Some emergency operations centers, however, are not built to withstand a major storm.
Agencies around the county have been preparing facilities known as safe rooms where first responders can take shelter and continue planning and operations while the storm is taking place.
The Fairhope City Council voted in January to approve construction of a safe room for city personnel at an estimated cost of $1.84 million.
Mayor Sherry Sullivan said the facility will provide space to shelter volunteer firefighters and other first responders, but under the terms of the Federal Emergency Management Agency grant paying 75 percent of the cost of the project, the city cannot use the room for most other purposes.
“This will house 75 people,” Sullivan said. “That’s what it is geared for. You can only put temporary furniture in a safe room. You can’t put any kind of permanent fixtures in there, but this will be one of the largest facilities that we have, which will be able to hold training for all the public works, all the police department, so it is large enough to be able to use for training. You just cannot also put permanent furniture there. So, we will have some uses for this building outside of just for a safe room. We obviously won’t use it all the time, but there is some other uses to it other than just the safe room.”
Jessica Walker, city community development director, said the FEMA grant requires that the Fairhope pay 25 percent of the cost. The city can, however, use the cost of the municipal property where the safe room is being built on Pecan Street as part of the city match.
She said the property has an estimated value of $130,500, bringing the rest of Fairhope’s matching funds down to about $329,929.
Danon Smith, grants coordinator for the Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency, said FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds help pay the cost of projects such as the municipal safe rooms. FEMA now has two grant programs going on, one for funds from Hurricane Sally and one for COVID-19.
The Hurricane Sally program made $14.6 million available for Baldwin County projects, including safe rooms. The total price of projects applied for was $35 million, she said.
Alabama has also been allocated $22 million statewide for hazard mitigation projects related to COVID-19.
Spanish Fort began work on its safe room, located in the main city fire station more than a year ago. Chief Roger Few said the room includes a central area that can also be used for training as well as a bunk room, kitchen and a room that will be made into a communications center to allow a police dispatcher to continue work during an emergency.
“The station that we’ve got now isn’t rated to stand up to a Category 3 hurricane,” Few said. “Before, if it looked like we were going to get more than that, we’d send everyone home until it was over.”
He said has put the room to use during Hurricane Sally in September 2020.
“When Sally hit, it wasn’t quite ready, but we used it,” Few said. “It worked out fine.”
The Spanish Fort safe room is rated to withstand winds of up to 200 miles an hour and hold up to 163 people during a storm, according to reports.
The bid price on the Spanish Fort safe room was $975,000 in December 2019. Chester Patterson, Spanish Fort public works director, said the total cost of the project was slightly more than $1 million after change orders and engineering costs.
Zach Hood, Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency director, said the county also has a safe room at the Fairhope Satellite Courthouse. He said having a safe room for emergency personnel allows officials to take action as soon as possible after a disaster rather than waiting for people to return from evacuation.
“That level of preparation means you can go from being reactive to proactive,” Hood said. “You need a place for your local response teams.
