The Courier of Montgomery County reports that Covenant Christian School in Conroe will be the location for a $5 million hurricane safety shelter. The shelter’s construction could begin by January.
The project was set aside for almost five years. Covenant Christian School Head Administrator Glenn Slater said the school “had a lot of things to work through with FEMA.” When COVID came along, that was a setback from federal help.
Seventy-five percent of the construction will be funded by FEMA, the school will contribute a 25 percent match.
Slater said they’ve got a contractor and a contract for construction.
Officials with Covenant Christian School, the City of Conroe and Montgomery County back in January of 2020 made known that the project would be a 19,000-square-foot concrete dome gymnasium that would provide safe protection for first responders and emergency personnel who can’t evacuate when a hurricane is underway in the region.
Also in 2020 Commissioners from Montgomery County gave the okay for a land lease agreement for the facility with the school.
According to the executive director of the County’s Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, Jason Millsapps, the school was given a Hurricane-Harvey based grant in 2020. Millsaps said the Covenant school is a “strategic location” relative to the school’s proximity to Houston and other areas that experience disastrous weather in which a “bunker-like” facility is needed to provide a place for first responders.
The school will maintain the property at no expense to the County. When not in emergency use the facility will be used as a gymnasium.
More than 650 first responders can be housed at the facility that can withstand 200 mph winds.
