Temporary shelter MOU approved

Portions of the Golden Hour Senior Center building will act as a temporary shelter for The Mission at Castle Rock Rehabilitation Center should they ever be faced with an emergency evacuation situation.

During the Sweetwater County Commissioners meeting Tuesday, the commissioners unanimously approved a memorandum or understanding between the county, GHSC and Mission. Under the MOU, Mission can use the GHSC building as a temporary shelter for its residents if an emergency occurs.

A few months ago, representatives from GHSC and Mission at Castle Rock approached the Sweetwater County Commissioners to see if they would approve a memorandum of understanding allowing Mission to use the facility in a case of an emergency, human resources director Garry McLean said.

Since GHSC is a county-owned building, the request had to go in front of the commission.

The request was postponed until county employees could answer questions that arose from the previous meeting. With this in mind, county employees from various departments met to address the concerns.

McLean said one thing that was cleared up at the meeting with employees was Mission is only looking at using GHSC for a temporary shelter in the case of an emergency, such as a fire, gas leak, roof collapse. If something like that should happen and Mission needs conduct an emergency evacuation of all or most clients, then they would notify the county to use the GHSC building.

“This is not to be looked at as a nursing home,” he said.

Mission at Castle Rock already has agreements with other nursing homes to take their clients in case there is a prolonged emergency, McLean explained.

He said sometimes it’s not even possible to transport clients to Rock Springs when the roads are closed and this would give them a temporary place to stay should something happen at Mission.

“Obviously, they don’t want them there in any permanent capacity because they don’t have staff, equipment and supplies in that facility,” he said.

However, as a shelter it would work fine to hold Mission’s residents there until they can be transported to another facility or back to Mission.

The whole building has emergency backup power and a portion of the building is empty, which would be used first.

The agreement states Mission would pay for the gas used to power the generator should they need to use it.

The MOU also states a Mission representative can contact the emergency “on-call” number to receive access to the building should a situation arise.

 

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