Disaster Prep Facility to Benefit ASU Students, First Responders

Kelly Damphousse, chancellor of Arkansas State University.

To prepare for disasters close to home it makes sense to train close to home.

After a ceremonial groundbreaking that was relocated, ironically, because of the threat of bad weather last week, Arkansas State University will welcome the start of construction on a disaster training preparedness pavilion facility in Imboden (Lawrence County).

Completion is projected for June. Late last week the groundbreaking was moved from the site south of Imboden city limits — bordered by Highway 63 and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad — to the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Health Sciences on the Arkansas State campus.

The pavilion will be used to train a variety of first responders but will also be the primary training site for Arkansas State students enrolled in the Regional Center for Disaster Preparedness Education program.

“With our bachelor’s and master’s degree programs and community projects like the disaster training facility, we are educating the next generation of leaders in this vital service area for our cities, towns and counties,” ASU Chancellor Kelly Damphousse said.

In the past, said professor emeritus Deborah Persell, students have had to undertake hands-on training in places like the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, Alabama.

“This facility will provide the means to have some of that hands-on training a little closer,” Persell said.

A $150,000 grant from the Delta Regional Authority provides the cost of the pavilion, parking lot and materials for building the road from the gate to the pavilion. There is a master plan for expanding the facility, including the building of an education building, Persell said, but it will be followed as additional money becomes available.

“Those funds will come from grants or philanthropic endeavors and revenues generated from training and classes that are there,” Persell said.

In fall of 2017, ASU signed 50-year lease agreements with Imboden and Walnut Ridge, with the understanding that facilities would be built as funding comes available. The Delta Regional Authority grant got the construction ball rolling.

The lease for Imboden covers more than 183 acres at an annual rate of $10,000, while the lease for Walnut Ridge covers 100 acres at the Walnut Ridge Regional Airport at a rate of $12,500.

“The first criteria is that they were willing and wanted the facilities in their communities and have been very forward thinking in how they approached this with the university,” Persell said.

The Imboden facility will eventually be home to multiple training zones where several types of training could occur simultaneously (energy, search and rescue, tactical and rail emergencies). The open-air pavilion will accommodate up to 30 and can be used for training in an appropriate outdoor environment, with water rescue training at the nearby Spring River one of the first things scheduled, Persell said.

Walnut Ridge is an ideal site because of the airport, which could be used for staging in the event of a cataclysm like an earthquake along the New Madrid fault line.

“It’s just kind of serendipitous how it turned out,” Persell said.

Along with ASU students, the target audience for the facility includes traditional first responders (EMS, police, fire), emergency managers, officials responsible for disaster planning and response, non-government organizations, faith-based organizations responding to disasters, and volunteers responding to disasters from across the nation.

There will be some elements of training for students only, but they will be welcome to participate in some of the other training provided at the site.

The Regional Center for Disaster Preparedness Education program was instituted at ASU in 2005. The department offers degrees in disaster preparedness and emergency management (associate of applied science, bachelor of science and master of science); health care emergency management (graduate certificate); homeland security and disaster preparedness (minor); and paramedic (certificate of proficiency in EMT and associate of applied science in paramedic).