Many of the local communities have built safety facilities for their first responders to shelter within during a hurricane or other disaster. The City of Orange Beach is about to do the same. Orange Beach is one of three cities in Baldwin County taking advantage of a FEMA-funded program to build safe rooms for first responders during hurricanes.

“The funds that are used to pay for the safe room are directly related to Hurricane Sally,” Orange Beach Grants Coordinator Nicole Woerner said. “It’s a hazard mitigation fund and they take a certain percentage from the disaster and the amount is based on what they paid out for public and individual assistance but it’s directly tied back to Hurricane Sally.”

Orange Beach has not received final notice it will receive the funding but Woerner believes it's on the path to approval.

“Our project was moved high enough to move forward,” Woerner said. “We’re going to get the grant it’s just a matter of when.”

At the Dec. 17 council meeting, the city approved a contract with EnCompass360 for grant writing services to apply to FEMA for a grant for a hurricane safe room for first responders for $115,000 but the city paid $30,000 for the same service in March of 2021 of the then total of $60,000. With the change in location of the safe room, the price went up to $115,000 with a balance now of $85,000. The contract calls for the city to pay half now and the final $42,500 when FEMA approves the project.

The council postponed a vote on a resolution to award EnCompass a contract to provide services for requests for proposals for a contractor to build the safe room.

“Originally, we were talking about putting on the island but if there is a catastrophic hurricane coming our way, I would prefer that all first responders and those people that you just don’t think of that have to be there maybe the guys working at the sewer plant and the ones running the ambulances and get them off the island,” Woerner said.

The expected cost of the safe room is around $6.8 million with FEMA paying 90 percent and the city’s match will be 10 percent of the cost.

“There is a big room for sleeping quarters, there is a kitchen and there’s storage for cots, all the water, MREs,” Woerner said. “There’s a conference room in case people are sleeping and there needs to be some meeting happening. It's a place to sleep and stay when they’re in a cat 3, 4 or 5 hurricane and be comfortable. Restrooms and showers, of course.”

Another component will be an area for communications in the city and with outside agencies.

“There’s a little area, a small space but in case the whole police department is wiped out or not functioning or there is no power – whatever may happen - there is an area for communications to run out of,” Woerner said. “We just need our own place to do communications. It will be a place where all of our dispatchers can go. During Hurricane Sally, our radios went out for a time.”

The city's own safe room will provide more space and accommodations than the current plan to use Baldwin County schools in Foley.

“As the city has grown, we have so many first responders and we’re doing EMS transport now, we have a lot of fire trucks,” Woerner said. “We need a shift of first responders to work all that stuff and the county has limited space for first responders. Right now, we’re assigned to go to Florence B. Mathis Elementary School with Gulf Shores and then some overflow from Foley. It is just difficult to fit everyone and all of our apparatus that has to go when we go.”

Woerner said it would be ideal to have the room in place before the 2025 hurricane season but it’s more realistic to expect completion by June of 2026.

The county's cities with safe rooms include Elberta and Spanish Fort. Both Foley and Fairhope are in the process of pursuing FEMA grants to build safe rooms as well.