MEMA to award Safe Room Grants
LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Riding the storm out may get a little easier for some families in Lowndes County and others across the state.
Phase one of the Statewide Residential Safe Room Grant Program has begun.
From a lottery drawing, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency will award 38 applicants from each of the state’s counties with a reimbursement grant.
“Just 38 will have an impact on Lowndes County. We don’t have many shelters here. We use our schools for shelters, but having one in your yard or at your home, just make it safe because sometimes we get last minute warnings. So, you don’t have to try to get in your car and go to a
safe place,” said Lowndes County Emergency Management Director Cindy Lawrence.
MEMA will start notifying the applicants this week through email.
The organization said the grant will provide up to $3,500 to help install a FEMA-compliant safe room or storm shelter.
Cindy Lawrence is the Lowndes County Emergency Management Director.
Though she has reached out to MEMA, she isn’t aware of who in the county has received the grants.
She said her department likes to keep a list of those with storm shelters.
“We do it for safety reasons, just say for instance, you may have a tornado that comes through and anything can be blown on that shelter door and when we get to know that we got shelters in a certain location, we know that we can go to that shelter and make sure that if someone is inside, that they’re safe and we can get them out”
Lowndes County Resident Marilyn Hood just got a storm shelter installed at her home two weeks ago.
“We hope not to use it, but my husband recently had a stroke and is disabled, so I can roll him right out of the front and right in it,” said Hood.
It took six months for the concrete shelter to be built.
Hood said she and her husband haven’t been through a big storm in a while, but they want to be prepared.
“We just feel safer having it. We hope we never have to use it, but it feels better to have it,” said Hood.
The shelter can hold up to eight people.
“Some neighbors, some close neighbors, have talked about coming over and using it too,” said Hood.
Lawrence said school storm shelters can not be used when school is in session.
MEMA received more than 11,000 applicants for the lottery drawing.
The organization said the selected applicants should not purchase or install a safe room at this stage.
They are only allowed to after they receive an official approval letter from MEMA.
