Damage from an EF4 tornado in Henryville, Indiana on March 2, 2012 (Source: NOAA, via Wikimedia)

In 2015, the Indiana Department of Homeland Security (IDHS) developed a Residential Safe Room Program to provide a rebate for the construction and installation of safe rooms. Safe rooms protect people; they survive winds as high as 250 miles per hour. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a safe room is defined as a hardened structure specifically designed to meet FEMA criteria and provide “near-absolute protection” in extreme weather events.

The State of Indiana provides this rebate through the FEMA Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) Grant Program. To be eligible for a federal safe room grant, the requesting community must have a current  FEMA-approved Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan (MHMP).

Washington County, Indiana’s emergency management agency saw real value to this program and the safety of its residents. It has recorded 31 tornadoes since 1956, as stated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The strongest tornado occurred in April 1974 when an F5 tornado crossed the southeastern portion of the county. Six people were killed and 86 injured.

In March 2012, an EF4 tornado started in Fredericksburg in the southern part of the county, moving east through Clark and Jefferson counties in Indiana, and ended in Bedford, Kentucky. The tornado killed 11 people, including a family of five in eastern Washington County when their mobile home was destroyed. In neighboring Clark County, the tornado hit the Henryville school complex during dismissal, increasing the level of risk to students, parents, teachers, and school staff. Click on the map to visualize the location of Washington County schools in relation to the various tornado tracks.

Map showing location of Washington County schools in relation to the various tornado tracks.

In 2017, Washington County applied for and received a grant to build a safe room at Bradie Shrum Elementary School in Salem. It was completed in 2018. Knowing that it wanted to apply for federal grants to build two additional school safe rooms and its MHMP would expire in June 2018, Washington County started its MHMP update process in April 2018 by submitting a letter to FEMA for a request of funds. In mid-September 2018, FEMA approved a grant request by the Indiana Department of Homeland Security (IDHS) for the update of a number of Indiana counties’ MHMPs, including Washington County.

Updating a county’s MHMP typically requires between six and 12 months of meetings, planning, and analysis. The deadline for submitting the safe room proposal was January 15, 2019 and the County needed its new MHMP adopted and approved by then in order to be eligible for the grant.  To meet the grant deadlines in Washington County’s case, the update schedule needed to be accomplished in only three months.

Washington County and the River Hills Economic Development District (EDD) & Regional Planning Commission (RPC) reached out to The Polis Center as soon as the grant funding became available to update the County’s plan. The Polis Center worked closely with the County, its incorporated city and towns, and its three school districts to update the plan within an accelerated timeline. With the help of River Hills and the County, and the excellent participation of its communities and schools, Polis was able to schedule all three critical on-site meetings within a little over a month.

Thanks to FEMA’s close support, the County received its Approval Pending Adoption letter on January 10, 2019 and on January 14, the West Washington School Corporation and Salem Community Schools adopted the plan. The County adopted the plan the next day and it became official with FEMA’s final approval on January 15, 2019. Soon thereafter, the County applied for a safe room grant and should learn this month (May 2019) if its application has been accepted. If it is approved, the federal government will pay 75% of the cost of the safe rooms.

The Polis Center is proud to have played an essential role in the plan update and to have facilitated the high level of collaboration and active participation on the part of all levels of government –  county, state, and federal – in pursuit of increasing the safety of fellow Hoosiers.