FEMA OKs funds for city hall, EOC hurricane upgrades
The city of Cape Coral will get $10.5 million to provide wind protection and backup power to the city hall building and to design a hurricane safe room for the emergency operations center.
Ryan Lamb, Emergency Management director, said the allocation is one of 16 hazard mitigation grant projects the city submitted and was approved years ago. The city submitted the grants about a year after Hurricane Ian, which were approved by Lee County, the Florida Division of Emergency Management and now received the final approval from FEMA.
“They were tentatively approved, and we were waiting on these finalized notice of awards to come through,” Lamb said Tuesday morning. “There were two that were approved and came through yesterday – the city hall project and the emergency operations center.”
Lamb said the city hall project is to further improve the protection of the building, which will include increasing the wind load capacity of the glass at city hall, which includes 10 door openings, and 217 windows.
“The western exposure is all glass. Right now, it is not impact glass. Because of the height and size it is difficult to protect,” Lamb said.
The work will also include roof mitigation. In addition, the city is increasing the capacity of the generator, as the one currently provides power to half of the building.
“The generator will provide power to the full building,” Lamb said of the new one.
From the time the project is awarded there is a three-year window to complete the project.
“The next steps is that the full grant gets approved by the city and federal government,” Lamb said, with the design process to follow.
The emergency operations center also will benefit from the allocation.
Lamb said the EOC needs a Category 5 SLOSH – Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes – model. The allocation will help make the EOC safer by improving wind rating to a 200 miles per hour window rating, elevating the structure to higher elevation, hardening the infrastructure and providing enough space for essential staff to work before, during and after the storm.
“The project is currently slated to be built just south of city hall near old fire station 2,” Lamb said. “It’s almost across the parking lot from the current EOC.”
This also has a three-year completion window.
“These are two projects of 25 projects of $150 million we are currently managing as part of Hurricane Ian recovery for the city,” he said. “Our goal is to maximize federal and state funding to provide these services.”
The money is part of a FEMA allocation of more than $41.5 million in funding to Florida, Georgia and South Carolina for long-term projects that will make local communities more resilient to disasters.
“This funding is part of the more than $137 million that FEMA announced for more than 50 projects nationwide,” FEMA officials said in a release issued Monday. “Under DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s leadership, FEMA is working diligently to address a backlog of funding requests. Even 69 days into the current lapse in appropriations, the longest ever in U.S history, DHS and FEMA are delivering resources to states across the country.”
Other FEMA projects recently approved across the Southeast include:
• $7.4 million to Charlotte County to design hurricane safe rooms and provide backup power to the county’s leachate waste plant and landfill.
• $3 million to Fort Myers to install a generator at a fire station, provide backup power at the South Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant and for the design and engineering phase of a plan to reduce downtown flooding.
• $1.4 million to the state of Georgia for 12 generators in Baldwin and Muscogee counties.
• $664,470 to South Carolina’s Marco Rural Water Company to relocate existing water lines.
These awards are from FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which empowers states, local governments, tribal nations and territories to complete activities and projects that prevent, eliminate, or reduce disaster-related damage.
FEMA will provide the funding to the states to disburse to local governments.
To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com