Facility will be used when disaster strikes

By Jay Ermis

The Walker County Storm Shelter is officially open.

An estimated 150 people attended Thursday morning’s opening ceremonies and ribbon cutting at the 14,300 square-foot shelter located at 455 State Highway 75 North.

Construction of the shelter began in early September 2007 by Brothers Construction of Shenandoah and was substantially complete by Sept. 2, 2008.

Final construction costs totaled $2,788,476, while the project overall cost $3.1 million, including all fees.

The shelter was paid for by grant money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Office of Rural Community Affairs of Texas.

The HEARTS Veterans Museum of Texas is in charge of leasing the 9,000 square-foot main room, which can be divided into four smaller rooms, for different events, such as weddings or meetings.

Tom Oleinik is the complex director for the museum.

Butch Davis, Walker County emergency management coordinator, who served as master of ceremonies; Andrew Isbell, director of the county Planning and Development Department; and county engineer Jerry Nemec were instrumental in writing the grant and continuing the process with construction of the storm shelter.

“What it means to the Office of Emergency Management is that we have a facility in the event that we need to shelter folks from Walker County or from other counties,” Davis said. “We have a place we can go to that won’t interrupt schools, it won’t interrupt church services.

“The people who help us during these times will not have to close their facilities. We can shelter 930 people here without closing another facility.

“If we get into a major deal then of course everybody will close and we will continue to work. This is something that will help us get started in Walker County.”

Since he served as emergency management coordinator, Davis said he was asked what he wanted in a storm shelter.

“Andy Isbell, who is the director of planning and development for the county, and I figured out what we needed for this facility,” Davis said. “It’s kind of our dream.

“It meets what we need for a shelter.”

Davis said the shelter has showers for men and women, a state-of-the-art kitchen and televisions for evacuees to watch.

“We have a back up generator that can run 72 hours without being refueled,” he said. “It holds 2,000 gallons of diesel and burns about 22 gallons an hour.

“We have right at 9,000 square feet in our main hall.”

While the HEARTS museum will be leasing the main room, Davis if an emergency or disaster occurs, the event scheduled at the shelter will have to be moved.

“The number one purpose for building this is that it is a storm shelter,” Davis said. “That is priority over everything.

“There was a lot of people involved getting the shelter built. This is definitely a group effort of a lot of people.”

Isbell, who was instrumental in writing the grant for the money to build the shelter, said, “I am really happy to bring the project to conclusion.

“The state is here and has looked over the building and they’re very pleased with the results. The Red Cross is very pleased with the results.”

Isbell said the shelter will serve as a model for the state in building other storm shelters.

“Several other counties are interested in touring the facility,” Isbell said. “I think we probably couldn’t have had a better local team or better state groups to work with.

“The Governor’s Office Division of Emergency Management and Office of Rural Community Affairs have been fantastic to work with on the project.”

Isbell, Davis and county engineer Jerry Nemec “were the original three people who put together the original grant application and sent it to the state.”

“We sort of put the project together at the front end and then we’ve stuck with the project on the management team through the whole thing,” Isbell said. “I think we did a pretty good job of putting it together and wrapping it up. I couldn’t ask for two better people to work with on the project.”

Isbell said the shelter is the first of its size and exact type in the state and “it will probably be the last one of this size built with these types of dollars with the state’s new criteria.

“The largest facility they will now fund will be 6,000 square feet. It is sort of a unique one coming in and it’s probably going to remain that way give some changes in the regulations.”

Isbell said Walker County is one of five or six hub cities in the state in the emergency management program to receive evacuees and the smallest of them.

“Huntsville was selected because of its location in relation to Houston and its location to wind lines,” he said. “We have a unique geography that we are just north of the heavy wind lines for hurricanes and we’re just south of heavy wind lines for tornadoes.

“I am happy that it is done and over and I also very happy to have been a part of it. I am glad to finish it. I wouldn’t go back and do anything different.”

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