The City of Pierre now has a designated public storm shelter.
The shelter is located near the tennis courts in Griffin Park. The 2,400 square foot structure is large enough to protect up to 400 people and built to withstand 200 mph winds.
Parks and Recreation Director Tom Farnsworth says this is the Pierre’s first fully protected shelter in the park system. He says they have some remote systems in place to unlock the community room, the largest space in the shelter, in the event of a storm. The bathrooms and lobby are also designed to sustain the winds and can be used for shelter.
There are about 1,800 people living within about a half a mile of the shelter and each summer the Griffin Park campground hosts an average of one-thousand camping units.
The $800,000 project was made possible by grants from the South Dakota Office of Emergency Management, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and funding from the City of Pierre.
Regardless of weather, the facility serves as a comfort station to campers and park users, and provides additional public use space in Pierre.
A public open house will be scheduled at a later date.
