By Rob Kundert
Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, Iowa)
Copyright 2006 Woodward Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
DUBUQUE, Iowa — Too many names to name. The list is lengthy of those who have contributed to a pipe dream that started out on the back of a cocktail napkin just a few years ago.
That dream is quickly evolving into the $2.6 million Regional Emergency Responder Training Facility on the western edge of Dubuque.
“It kind of hit me today,” said Tom Berger, director of Dubuque County Emergency Management and one of many who have pushed the project. “I thought, ‘What did we do? This is awesome. It’s amazing.’”
A crowd of about 350 people turned out Thursday afternoon at the Seippel Road location, on county land near the Julien Care Facility, to dedicate its $1 million first phase - the four-story training tower.
It is equipped with live-fire simulators and set up for a range of emergency training scenarios.
The final phase — an indoor training facility complete with a large-open exercise area, offices, classrooms and equipped to be an alternate emergency communication center — is well under way nearby; $200,000 still is needed for its completion.
“If we are asking men and women to risk their lives for the good of our community, then we owe them the best training we can provide,” Wayne Demmer, Dubuque County Board of Supervisors chairman, told the gathering.
From the six-figure sums chipped in by the Dubuque Racing Association and local and state government to smaller amounts from groups and individuals, the list of contributors is long.
Norma Denlinger, a charter member of the DRA, said she was proud that its first Future Fund grant of $750,000 awarded last year gave the project a needed boost.
“It allowed them to finish this phase of their project and to let the public know that somebody had a lot of faith in this besides the firemen,” she said.
Then there is the Smart Hatters of Dubuque, a group of 18 ladies who work at Wal-Mart who formed a red-hat club and took the training center as a community project. The club chipped in $6,000 through a garage sale and a grant from Wal-Mart.
Add to that the in-kind contributions and volunteer hours, and the list grows.
The center will mean less travel and better access to training for the 600 emergency responders in Dubuque County. Typically, they have to travel to the Fire Service Training Bureau in Ames, Iowa.
The programming at the new center will be managed by Northeast Iowa Community College.
Saving the cost of hotel rooms and other expenses and keeping firefighters close to their families is important to volunteer departments, according to Henry Westhoff, New Vienna fire chief.
His counterpart in Holy Cross, Fire Chief Jack Theisen, said the hands-on experience in the new training tower can be critical.
“A lot of times guys don’t get to see an actual fire. They’re on the department two or three years seeing nothing but a grass fire,” he said.
Dubuque County units will rotate through for training and drilling the rest of this year.
After Jan. 1, there will be open enrollment programs for firefighters from throughout the Midwest. The new center is estimated to draw 15,000 emergency responders in a 90-mile radius of Dubuque County.
Contributors
$800,000 - Dubuque Racing Association
$450,000 - State of Iowa
$400,000 - City of Dubuque
$392,000 - Dubuque County
$350,000 - Local businesses, organizations and individuals