Story By Mary Bailey

Monday morning District 4 Chairman Joey Baker and his crew were busy installing the latest storm shelter for the Alder Springs Community.

Directly next to the Alder Springs Community Center now sits a completely steel, 94 capacity storm shelter.

“It has a concrete pad that is three to four feet deep. They dug the footer, poured the concrete, put rebarb and then they had to let it set out for the concrete to get good and hard because it was so thick. They will set the shelter and then drill holes and anchor it down,” said Commissioner Baker as the crain was lowering the shelter onto the concrete.  “The generator will also be hooked to the Alder Springs Community Center building. We had to get a little bit bigger generator because we are going to power that building too. There are elections in the building, and they need the generator for elections and that’s why we are hooking the building up to it. We are just kind of putting it all together here and taking care of that too.”

Commissoner Baker said they tried to get a grant for the shelter through FEMA, but it was turned down. 

“Yeah, they turned us down. Then you have to wait until grants are available and apply for them,” he continued. “They have been wanting to for years, so we just gave up on that and paid for it ourselves like District 2 did.”

Baker said $100,000 will come from countywide funds and the remainder will come from his budget.

“It’s a good day. It’s just great to finally see. They have been wanting this out here for a long time.” 

The new storm shelter located at 5867 Hustleville Road in Albertville will be completely hooked up and ready by the end of this week.