Eight southcentral Kentucky first responder departments received funding from the 2016 Homeland Security Grant Program offered by the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security.

KOHS offered 112 recipients a total of $2.7 million in grants to city and county governments, fire protection districts, area development districts and public universities to purchase first responder equipment, communications equipment and critical infrastructure protection.

Edmonson County Ambulance Service Director Keith Sanders said the department was looking to purchase additional cardiac monitors out of its budget. Now it won’t have to.

“We were awarded enough to purchase one cardiac monitor,” he said of the $30,000 grant. “It helps us meet the new proposed state regulations. We’ve been needing additional ones for about three years.”

The last cardiac monitor had to be bought on a three-year lease/purchase, Sanders said.

“We don’t have the amount of money to just go buy them,” he said. “We have to get them on a lease/purchase.”

Bowling Green Fire Department Deputy Chief Administrator Dustin Rockrohr said the $20,600 grant came at a good time for the department.

“We had a need for the year we applied for. The things we are getting are going to fit well in our technical rescue program,” he said. “It couldn’t have happened at a better time.” 

The grant will be used for personal protective equipment such as helmets, boots, gloves and jumpsuits for technical rescues such as rope, swift water, confined space, trench, structural collapse and extraction from vehicles and machinery, Rockrohr said.

“The gear we normally wear has a thermal layer. It’s what keeps us from getting burned,” he said. “When you’re working in a technical rescue, you don’t necessarily need that because there’s not a heat aspect to it most of the time. This gear will allow us to function safely, but we won’t necessarily need that extra layer.”

Rockrohr doesn’t know how many sets the department will be able to afford.

“We would love to get 24 sets but don’t know if we can,” he said. “We don’t know what the costs are going to be.”

Allen County Sheriff’s Department project director Shane Britt said he was “tickled” about the $6,000 search-and-rescue grant and the $48,400 radio grant. The sheriff’s office will use it for a thermal imaging camera while the Allen County Rescue Squad will use its money for a digital radio.

“We had tried for the radio grant a couple of years ago,” he said. “The sheriff wanted more than we got for the thermal imaging cameras, but he’s happy. One camera costs $5,099.99.”

Warren County Emergency Management Deputy Director Brian Geringswald said the $35,400 the department will receive is “great news.”

“With a small budget, anything we get obviously helps,” he said. “We’re excited.”

The department would like to use the grant for personal flotation devices, helmets and dry suits. Geringswald said it will decide for sure once it knows more about the grant, which was written for swift water rescue.

“It’s going to help us with what we’ve been short of,” he said. “This will enable us to get equipment to personnel so we don’t have to share a lot.”

Other departments that got Kentucky Office of Homeland Security Grants include the following: City of Lewisburg, personal protective equipment, $14,100; Russellville Rural Fire Department, personal protective equipment, $30,000; Richardsville Volunteer Fire Department, personal protective equipment, $22,000.

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