Birmingham News | Emergency management agency is changing the rule that forced schools to buy storm shelters or tear them down

Emergency management agency is changing the rule that forced schools to buy storm shelters or tear them down
Birmingham News editorial board | The Birmingham News | October 7, 2011

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been pretty efficient of late. That's why so many people were flabbergasted by a silly rule that called on FEMA to destroy storm shelters it used tax dollars to build unless the shelters were bought from FEMA with other tax dollars.

But reason prevailed, and it looks like the only residue will be a little embarrassment for FEMA. While the details are still being worked out, two members of Alabama's congressional delegation said they have been told FEMA is scrapping the tear-down policy.

Here's what's going on: FEMA is paying three-quarters of the $1.5 million cost to install storm shelters at four schools in DeKalb, Franklin, Marion and Tuscaloosa counties that were damaged or destroyed in the April 27 tornado outbreak. While the schools are using temporary classrooms, which are basically trailers, the shelters will provide refuge for students during bad weather.

But FEMA said when the schools are repaired or replaced, they will have to either buy the temporary shelters at fair-market price, sell them to another entity and give the money to FEMA, or tear them down -- a cost that FEMA will cover.

The whole mess was reminiscent of previous federal government embarrassments like paying hundreds of dollars apiece for toilet seats. Nobody could understand the logic in the FEMA rules, and that includes some FEMA officials, who said they were working with school and state officials to figure something out.

Tuesday, U.S. Reps. Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills, and Robert Aderholt, R-Haleyville, said they had been told by FEMA that a plan is in the works to allow the schools to keep the shelters without paying for them. Bachus had sponsored a bill to block FEMA from charging public schools for the shelters.

Now an act of Congress won't be necessary.

"It never made sense to tear down perfectly good storm shelters, and it's a relief that option is totally off the table," Bachus said.

FEMA and state emergency management officials said they are still working out details, and that's fine. The bottom line is good, though: the shelters won't have to be paid for, moved or torn down.

The need for shelters won't end when the schools are rebuilt or repaired, even if the schools include safe rooms, as some of them do. More community shelters are needed in Alabama for people who have no place to go when a severe weather outbreak occurs.

These new FEMA shelters are a good start, and FEMA did right by changing a rule that made no sense.

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