CARIBOU, Maine — Aroostook County EMA just received $50,000 in supplemental funding from Homeland Security and 90 percent is already spent.
“With this supplemental funding came a string attached, they wanted us to turn it around quickly,” Director of Aroostook County EMA Darren Woods said.
Parts of Maine received Homeland Security funding and didn’t use all of it so the state picked it up and redistributed it. Woods wrote a needs request with the help of Aroostook’s police chiefs association and other county agencies.
It only took a few days for almost all of the money to be spent and Woods said that’s because The County has a dire need for equipment.
Items purchased with the supplemental funding will benefit all community police departments and the sheriff’s department.
“Our last grant round we started assisting our law enforcement agencies with the purchasing of body cameras,” Woods said. “I foresaw next they were going to need storage for all the data, and rather than spending thousands on servers and computers I approached them with the idea of purchasing removable hard drives.”
Woods purchased several 5,000 gigabyte removable hard drives for each department in The County.
“They haven’t even started their body cam program yet because they’re just getting things in now and they’re working through policies and laws, but this storage space will also be at their fingertips as soon they start their program,” Woods said.
County law enforcement can also expect new automated external defibrillators for law enforcement units that didn’t have them before.
A new batch of response guides will soon be available to help local EMA directors.
“I plan to purchase incident command books, emergency shelter operations, which is an issue for us, and damage assessment guides,” Woods said. He wants to continue with the programs that educate local directors so the region as a whole is more prepared.
Aroostook County EMA has also entered a three-fold partnership with the Red Cross and the city of Caribou to assist with moving their regional shelter concept forward.
EMA will fund the installation of a generator hookup into the Caribou Wellness Center and in turn the city of Caribou will provide a generator. “What they were missing was that middle piece, which was a little over $18,000,” Woods said. This will allow the wellness center to act as an additional Red Cross regional shelter that would serve not only Caribou, but all the communities around as well.
All purchases have been made accept for that generator connection. “We have to follow federal guidelines on environmental review. A bit more paperwork and legwork is involved,” Woods said.
Since 2003 Aroostook County EMA has brought Homeland Security money into northern Maine and often they’re given the opportunity to go after supplemental funding. “In Aroostook we always use our money. We have needs in The County and we make sure we’re using up the funding where it’s needed,” Woods said.
Woods is already starting to work on the next grant for this year.
