The West Fulton Fire Department building serves as the primary emergency shelter in the Town of Fulton and is the only Red Cross-certified shelter in the area. The inadequacies of the existing facility were made painfully apparent during Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. Although the building was certified for 60 people, it needed to provide temporary shelter for over 100 residents at the same time as fire department personnel provided first-responder services. These dual functions occurred in a very limited space which threatened both the efficiency of the emergency response and the safety of the survivors. When serving this many people, the facility did not meet current Red Cross emergency shelter standards, including 40 square feet of floor area per person for sleeping, a food service and dining area separate from the designated sleeping area, and an appropriately sized generator.

The Town of Fulton and the West Fulton Fire Department engaged Delaware Engineering to upgrade the current facility, expand its capacity, and increase its resiliency. These improvements will ensure that the facility can effectively provide two concurrent services: operation as an emergency shelter, and provision of efficient emergency response services and supply distribution during major storm and other adverse events.

Delaware provided all necessary architectural design and structural engineering for the following project components (and others):

• A 2,000 square foot building addition to accommodate 100 people to meet Red Cross and FEMA standards;
• Upgrades to the heating and emergency lighting systems;
• Upgrades to the septic system and leach field;
• Permanent, redundant automatic backup power generation;
• Expanded parking lot designed for better parking, circulation, staging of equipment and distribution of supplies;
• Installation of two new bathrooms and a new shower, both ADA compliant
• Fully renovated kitchen space ex-pansion to facilitate food operations;
• New laundry facility & storage space.

The completed building improvements both strengthen local emergency response capabilities and build a more resilient community by providing space for equipment and shelter. The construction budget exceeded $1 million with construction anticipated to be completed by August 2020.