City seeks grant for emergency storm shelter
By Ralph Pokorny
Nevada Daily Mail
For the last couple of weeks, a group of 10 or 12 city employees have been hard at work collecting information to fill out a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant application. If the grant is obtained it would providethe city with a public storm shelter for 3,000 people and double as a basketball court and other meeting rooms.
The shelter will be a welcome addition to the city, since there is no designated public shelter.
This grant became available only a short time ago and the rather voluminous application must be filed by midnight Dec. 31.
This $2.5 to $3 million matching grant would be used along with money from the 1/2-cent park sales to build a new civic center with a safe room on the block where the city hall and public safety buildings are located. The facility would also tentatively house the police department and city hall. The fire department would be moved to a different location.
The grant itself would pay for building a shelter that will withstand 250 mph winds, and cover the cost of plumbing, electrical and in the case of a shelter this size HVAV and a back-up generator, as well as minimal restroom facilities. Any other additions, like a basketball floor, bleachers, larger restroom facilities and parking lots must be paid for with other funds.
Tuesday night the city council adopted Resolution No. 1174 to approve the grant application.
To help with the project the city has recruited the help of the Kaysinger Basin Regional Planning Commission to file the application.
We have already put together two applications under this program, Bud Hayes, Kaysinger Basin executive director, said during a work group meeting last week.
"Most recently we did a grant that got Collins a stand-alone storm shelter. We know the players at the state level," he said.
No one in the state has built a shelter this large with this program, Mark Mitchell, Nevada's project manager, said.
In order to fill out the grant application the group has determined how many people live within a five-minute transportation zone and how many houses have basements.
Most homes and businesses of Nevada are within five minutes of the city hall; and local real estate agents report that about 40 percent of houses they sell have basements.
They also have looked into special needs individuals, the number of employees in the downtown area during the day and the schools.
The Nevada schools and Cottey College already have their own plans to shelter in place and several other places have shelter plans.
"I don't see why it can't be done. I got more information here in 30 minutes than in three months in other places," B.J. Straw, Hazard Mitigation Planner for Kaysinger Basin, said.
When the group met Tuesday afternoon, Gary Herstein said that they had received letters of support from State Rep. Barney Fisher, the Vernon County Commission and that Congressman Ike Skelton would send FEMA a letter directly. A letter was also expected from the Vernon County sheriff any time.
"This has not been a waste of time -- even if we don't get the grant. We've learned a lot," Harlan Moore, interim city manager, said Tuesday afternoon.