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Crawfordsville Hopes New EMA Center Can Serve As A Regional Trainer

courtesy City of Crawfordsville

The Crawfordsville City Council has approved the consolidation of several properties into a single clearinghouse which will also play home to emergency management services.

Currently, the city’s EMA department operates out of an office in the basement of Crawfordsville’s city hall.

Mayor Todd Barton says when it is, the city will move some large pieces of equipment there, including a backup fire truck and a couple incident command trailers used in emergencies.

And since the building has so much space, Barton says he hopes to partially offset the cost of operating the structure by creating a regional training center for first responders.

“It’s a situation in which public safety entities cooperate with one another from around the state," Barton says. "And, really, from what we’re hearing on the law enforcement side, probably even more than just Indiana.”

Barton says training exercises could be held inside, allowing police, fire and emergency management personnel to prepare for a variety of circumstances.

“With this particular building, we have the ability to create, if you will, mockup structures inside the building. So you can constantly change the training scenario with movable walls and things like that to really create some very dynamic training, and we’re pretty excited about that.”

Barton says the new 50,000 square foot, warehouse-style structure must first be renovated.

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