LAUDERDALE COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) — The Lauderdale County Emergency Management Agency is pushing to get more storm shelters located throughout the county.
Finding a safe place in Lauderdale County during severe weather may be hard for some people living in the area.
EMA Director Brad Holmes tells News 19 that there aren’t many shelters in the area big enough to shelter residents.
“We have noticed that there has been a significant decrease in the city of Florence for us since there is only one voluntary shelter that opens during tornadic activity and that’s concerning,” Holmes said.
University of North Alabama student, Payton Palmer, has lived in Florence all his life, and he tells News 19 the area needs more shelters in a variety of locations.
“I think the problem is, I’ve been here my whole life, but I think the biggest problem is not knowing where they are or knowing the availability or how much room or where is the closest one,” Palmer said.
Holmes said that as the area continues to grow, the current storm shelters are frequently over capacity during severe events.
“As people recognize the seriousness of the situation, we are finding that the number of people going to these shelters are increasing, during the last two storms in February and March, both shelters were over capacity,” Holmes said.
Holmes tells me he recently met with city council to see what they can do to get more shelters in the area, which he said the creation of new shelters comes down to federal funding.
Each shelter costs roughly $270,000 at a rate of $2,700 a person.
“An ad hoc committee is in the process of being developed so that we can continue that conversation,” Holmes said. “Normally, with storm shelters, the money comes from one to two locations, either a federal declaration of a disaster that has happened and through that a grant called the hazard mitigation grant opens, that hasn’t opened up in our area since 2013.”
Holmes says he hopes to get the ball rolling on applying for grants right now.
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