Demopolis gets storm shelter grant
Published 8:07 am Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Mayor Woody Collins and U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell pose for a photo with students and center leaders at the Theo Ratliff Center Tuesday. | Brent Maze, The Demopolis Times
Mayor Woody Collins and U.S. Rep. Terri Collins celebrate the new storm shelter and auditorium at the Theo Ratliff Center. | Brent Maze, The Demopolis Times
City leaders join U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell for the check presentation for the new storm shelter and auditorium at the Theo Ratliff Center. | Brent Maze, Demopolis Times
U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell talks about the storm shelter project. | Brent Maze, The Demopolis Times
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The Theo Ratliff Center in Demopolis is going to get an auditorium that will also serve as a community storm shelter thanks to a grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
At an announcement ceremony, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Selma, formally announced that the City of Demopolis will receive $2.7 million from the federal government to build the storm shelter that will also serve as an auditorium at the center.
Kirk Brooker with Caldwell Architects said the facility will be just under 4,000 square feet with a maximum storm shelter occupancy of 513 persons. It will be located directly adjacent to the center.
Mayor Woody Collins said the city is matching 25% of the total project, which would cost the city about $900,000.
“This is such a needed thing in our community,” Collins said. “We got our funding, and we were all thrilled to death. We get to go work on the center.”
The original plan for the center 20 years ago was to have the auditorium, but it didn’t come to fruiting until just a few weeks ago. Once the center was donated to the city, Collins and city officials went to work to find funding to build the auditorium.
After striking out on several attempts, they learn about other communities use these FEMA grants to build storm shelters that served other purposes, and they decided to apply for a grant to build this auditorium and storm shelter.
“We’ve been asking for seven weeks now, what’s the deal?” Collins said. “I got a call last week that said, we want to come down and do a little presentation. They didn’t have to tell me what it was for.”
Sewell said she’s excited to see this being able to serve two purposes.
“The fact that we can dub it as both an auditorium and a storm shelter, that just means that we’re working double time,” Sewell said. “We’re allowing the space to have two different purposes and all of which are really important to the young folks who are here from Demopolis and from Marengo County.”
The next step in the process is the full design of the building.
