Crawford County Judge John Hall said that when his justices of the peace asked him what could be done about raising funds for additional safe rooms around the county during Thursday night’s Quorum Court meeting, he wasn’t surprised.
“It’s what’s on everybody’s mind,” Hall said.
Since last week’s 1.3-milewide tornado killed at least 24 people and destroyed much of Moore, Okla., residents have voiced concern about the availability of public tornado survival shelters.
Most public safe rooms in Arkansas are in public schools and are designed to accommodate each school’s total population of teachers, students, administration and staff members. Most of the rooms, which cost an average of $1 million to $1.5 million, are partially funded through a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant that provides 75 percent of the construction funds.
Crawford County Department of Emergency Management Director Dennis Gilstrap said he thinks his county is better off than many other areas in the state.
“I think Crawford County is very fortunate,” he said. “Most of our schools do [have safe rooms], and they’re continuing to get them at the ones that don’t.”
Funding for the FEMA grants is typically administered through one of eight Planning and Development Districts in the state, with each office falling under the federal Department of Commerce.
In the western district - which includes Crawford, Franklin, Logan, Polk, Scott and Sebastian counties - there are 50 completed safe rooms in public schools. Three school districts - Van Buren, County Line and Denning - have safe rooms under construction or in the design phase, according to Tracee McKenna, director of community development at the Western Arkansas Planning and Development District in Fort Smith. Twenty-three of the safe rooms are in the Fort Smith School District.
In the northwest district - which includes Baxter, Boone, Benton, Carroll, Madison, Marion, Newton, Searcy and Washington counties - there are no public school safe rooms that have been funded through his office, said Mike Galligan, planner for the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District.
To be eligible to receive FEMA grant funding, an area must either be declared a federal major disaster area or must develop a FEMA-approved hazard mitigation plan, Galligan said. Washington, Benton and Marion counties have received approval for their mitigation plans, and Baxter County officials are developing a plan, Galligan said.
Galligan said once a county has either developed a disaster mitigation plan or been declared a disaster area, a school district may submit a notice of intent to the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management to build a safe room according to FEMA specifications. Once a district receives approval, it has three years to complete the room.
FEMA provides guidelines for the size and durability of the shelters, which should be able to withstand 250-mph winds and be able to repel a 15-pound wooden two-by-four hurtling at 100 mph. The room should provide 5 square feet of floor space for each person, and 10 square feet for each individual in a wheelchair, Galligan said.
He said counties in his district have different reasons for not completing the shelters. In Newton and Searcy counties, for example, district budgets are so small that committing hundreds of thousands of additional dollars to the construction of a worst-case-scenario facility may not be possible.
“We have schools in fiscal distress,” Galligan said. “When you’ve got a school in fiscal distress, I don’t see them making this a priority. They have other issues to handle.”
Galligan said some counties have resisted even developing disaster mitigation plans out of fear that they will lead to an expansion of local government and interfere with residents’ use of their personal property.
“Some quorum courts get real excited as soon as they hear the word ‘plan,’”Galligan said. “They think ‘land use,’ and they think ‘zoning.’ They will back a county judge down real fast in that situation.
“I try to explain to people: ‘This [disaster mitigation plan] makes you eligible for funding - you don’t have to use it.’”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 05/28/2013