Finance Committee - 9/5/2018 Page 6
From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: FY16 State Homeland Security Grant Program Inflatable Command Post Shelter (Value: $49, 155)
MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE THE PURCHASE
FROM ZUMRO AIR SHELTERS USA, LLC, IN THE AMOUNT OF $49,155. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS
DEPARTMENT 156, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT; HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT
ON THE QUESTION
Mayor Donchess
We have Justin Kates, Emergency Management Director if you haven’t met him. Maybe Justin go ahead and
explain the idea.
Justin Kates, Emergency Management Director
Yes so this is a funded project through the Department of Homeland Security. We received this grant a few
years ago and have been having some challenges with the State who the funding passes through on the
specific model that we were authorized to purchase. But what we were able to agree upon was the model that
is before you this evening, it is an inflatable air shelter that can be set up stand-alone from any of our vehicles
or any of our buildings. This can be used as a command post for a longer term incident, whether it be
requested by the Fire Department, the Police Department, EMS, or any other organization.
It can also be used as a location to set up a medical treatment area for a special event or any sort of location
that doesn’t have some sort of a physical space for us to utilize. We can use that for medical treatment triage
or as an area to keep people warm or cool during extreme heat or extreme cold. So this is no match required
and we hope to start this process off of the purchase as soon as possible to get this thing in service this year.
Alderman O’Brien
Yes Mr. Kates in going over the specs | didn’t really see the size, maybe | didn’t pour over it. But what is the
capacity and the size that we are talking about?
Mr. Kates
| would say the closest thing that you could probably compare it to would be from the one that we are going to
be purchasing, it is probably from this column over to the wall, probably no more than 10 feet tall. Itis an
inflatable system so what it will end up doing is that it comes with a pump so it could be plugged into the wall
and you could inflate it that way or you could use SCBA bottles and attach those and use it to inflate. The time
that it takes to set that area up is no more than 5 or 6 minutes.
Alderman O’Brien
And follow up Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Donchess
Yes.
Alderman O’Brien
Would you not agree that, and I’ve had 15 years as a Deputy Chief, we could immediately set up a command
center in the early stages but when you get to a protracted incident that is going to take days, such as the
flooding we had in one of our neighborhoods several years ago. We were there for several days after. You
