FEMA funds would boost city, Tech partnership

The city of Ruston and Louisiana Tech University are looking to partner on a facility that would include the campus police department, a new fire station to replace the existing one on West California Avenue, and an emergency operations center.

Funding for the project would come partially from a $3 million FEMA hazard mitigation grant Lincoln Parish received because of the April 25, 2019 tornado. Notification of the FEMA money came last week.

In addition, the city would add $984,303 in match money required to get the FEMA funds, plus add the roughly $3 million it had already planned on spending for a new fire station.

Louisiana Tech would consider providing the property.

“There are several models for achieving funding for this center, and one of them would be for us to provide the property,” Louisiana Tech President Les Guice said. “We believe it is important to be close to our campus and are currently looking at several locations to see which provides the best opportunity for the facility to make a positive impact on all of our community.”

The project is a not a done deal. The city still has to complete all of the necessary FEMA applications to determine how much of the project meets FEMA guidelines.

Hazard mitigation money is for projects that reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and property from future disasters, according to FEMA’s website.

The $3 million in FEMA money is the entire amount of hazard mitigation money made available to Louisiana for the 2019 tornadoes that hit the state, Lincoln Parish Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Kip Franklin said.

Though the state could have held back some of the funds, it didn’t.

Technically the FEMA money came to the Lincoln Parish Police Jury, but it relinquished claim to the funds, thus enabling the money to go to the city.

“We made the decision because the vast majority of the damage was in the city and at Louisiana Tech,” parish Administrator Doug Postel said. “The right thing to do was to turn (the money) over to them.”

Postel said the decision represents “a new day of cooperation between the city and the parish” and is indicative of how the two entities will be cooperating in the future.

In order to qualify for hazard mitigation money, a parish must have received a presidential disaster declaration. Presidential declarations are granted based on the extent of storm damage.

Lincoln Parish was included in a declaration, along with Union and Morehouse parishes, but the bulk of the damage was in Ruston.

“We would have never gotten a presidential declaration had it not been for the damage to the city of Ruston and Louisiana Tech,” Franklin said.

Ruston Mayor Ronny Walker said the city “had no idea” it was going to receive the mitigation money. The money is separate from other FEMA disaster recovery reimbursement for which Ruston has applied.

Walker called the partnership with Louisiana Tech “a match made in heaven.”

“It just really makes total sense bringing everything closer together and it saves both of us money,” he said.

In the aftermath of the storm that destroyed Louisiana Tech’s baseball, softball and soccer fields and damaged student apartments, school officials began putting together a list of items that would make its response to any future emergency quicker and more effective, Guice said.

“An emergency operations center near campus was one of the top items on our list. Our community needs a place near campus where we can operate during emergency events in ways that are cooperative and that support residents in this part of the city,” Guice said.

“We need a robust facility with communications and information systems that can support emergency operations such as a train or truck incident or spill, another tornado or weather event, an active shooter — all of these incidents need a solid base of operations for an appropriate response,” he said.

The existing EOC is located in the parish public safety complex on Road Camp Road north of Ruston. Both Postel and Franklin said a backup EOC, even though located in Ruston, could benefit the entire parish.

Guice said among the chief benefits of the planned facility for the university will be the relocation of the campus police department. The department is now housed in part of a former dormitory.

“They will have an updated facility as well as be more connected with other agencies across the city, parish and state for operations. In addition, this portion of town needs a larger fire station,” he said.

Though the city has a station located on the edge of campus, the building is outdated; its lone truck bay is barely large enough to hold a current-sized fire engine.