A state grant will help pay for new natural gas generators at the La Plata County Fairgrounds and expand emergency accommodations at the campus to provide backup power and a warm refuge.
La Plata County recently received $150,000 of a $198,000 request from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs. Tentative plans are to install the generators in spring 2017.
The city of Durango can provide some emergency power generation to its water and sewer systems, but there isn’t a mechanism to help residents who rely on power for medical reasons, or when an outage occurs in winter. According to a county analysis, the latter is a growing risk.
A study conducted in 1998 indicated up to 18,000 La Plata County homes were dependent on electrical ignition and do not have backup heating systems. In 2010, the county found that by comparing the most recent census data and building permits issued since the mid-90s, that number had grown to about 20,000.
“The loss of electrical service when it’s cold is a huge vulnerability for us,” said Butch Knowlton, director of the county office of emergency management. “It’s been a gradual discussion and process that’s taken place in the last few years.”
The fairgrounds historically has been a hub for shelter, incident command and disaster support, as it was during the 2002 Missionary Ridge Fire. But the fairgrounds have only sufficient power to keep basic lights and electrical outlets operational in a portion of the building during a power failure.
Under current configurations, the county can house about 100 people.
“If we had a long-term outage of electricity, we’re very limited in what we can do,” Knowlton said. “There are few buildings in this county that have backup generators.”
That can create a problem in the winter, especially. About 15 years ago, La Plata Electric Association had an issue with a substation west of Durango, which cut power in La Plata County.
“It was fortunately not super cold, but 911 calls started coming in,” Knowlton said. “We started going through the process of identifying the need and the support we had to provide. The issue was corrected, but it put fear in my world, because it proved to us in a hurry that we lacked the locations where people could go and get shelter.”
The new generators will provide emergency power for the entire “campus” – the fairgrounds, Durango-La Plata Senior Center and Colorado State University Extension Building – to expand available space to shelter about 800 residents in an emergency.
When the project is complete, the county expects to have about 38,000 square feet of facility space equipped for emergencies, 32,000 square feet of which can be used for housing, as well as access to commercial kitchens, bathrooms and offices.
The senior center will be able to accommodate people who have special needs or require medical assistance.
“We do live in a community where we’re blessed to have power all the time,” Knowlton said. “I’m supposed to worry about the day it isn’t working, and that’s part of what this process is.”
Susan Hakanson, special projects manager for the county, said because DOLA did not award the full amount, county staff is reworking the budget to bring the project’s cost down. Depending on the final budget, the county could match as much as $180,000, which would come from the general services budget.
jpace@durangoherald.com
