Pricing options sought for new Cape Girardeau County EMA center

Cape Girardeau County commissioners voted Thursday to seek a contract with a local firm to provide cost estimates for a new emergency management agency (EMA) facility.

Dille Pollard, an engineering architecture firm with offices in Cape Girardeau and Poplar Bluff, Missouri, won the nod over St. Louis-based Ross Baruzzini.

"This should be a simple project," said First District Commissioner Paul Koeper.

"(Dille Pollard) has done a lot of FEMA safe room buildings," he added, noting the company's experience building such hardened structures specifically designed to withstand extreme wind events, including tornadoes.

Dille Pollard has already built Federal Emergency Management Agency safe rooms for several area school districts -- Scott City R-I; Advance R-IV; Doniphan R-I; South Pemiscot R-V; Eminence R-I; Greenville R-II and Three Rivers College.

Koeper, elected to the county commission after a long tenure with Jackson's Penzel Construction, said he'd like to see the project broken out into three phases: planning, design and construction/inspection.

He cited inflation as a key reason for a phased approach.

"With prices going up, we could potentially delay actual construction until a later date [but] we'll have to see the numbers," he added.

County EMA director Mark Winkler said the proposed new center, to be built on currently unspecified county-owned land, would house 15 to 20 pieces of county owned or managed equipment and would include EMA offices and the emergency operations center.

County EMA offices presently are in the basement of No. 1 Barton Square in Jackson -- home to county administration.

"We need an indoor facility to house the equipment, keep it out of the elements so we can maintain it properly -- so the moment it's needed, it can go out of the door," Winkler said.

Koeper has taken the lead in pushing the idea of a safe room-quality structure able to withstand winds of 240 mph.

Previously, he noted destructive twisters have recently struck in the region.

"If we have all this (emergency) equipment and it all blows away, what good is it to anybody?" Koeper asked his fellow commissioners April 28.

Winkler, who has been county EMA chief since July 2018, said emergency management offices have been housed in the same location since 1985 with equipment, including mass fatality and large animal trailers, scattered in various sites around the county, much of it outdoors.